


Teach Me How to Fight (I'll Show You How to Win)

by Skalidra



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Brainwashing, Child Abuse, Conditioning, Court of Owls, Cuddling & Snuggling, DCU Big Bang, Developing Relationship, Dick Grayson is a Talon, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Jason Todd is a Talon, Kidnapping, M/M, Non-Consensual Groping, Non-Graphic Violence, Orphans, Restraints, Slow Burn, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 08:52:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 50,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8366035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skalidra/pseuds/Skalidra
Summary: Dick is taken by the Court after his parents' death to be trained as a Talon. He becomes loyal, deadly, and the Court's primary Talon. At least until he meets a boy from the Court's secondary, darker kind of servant who gets assigned to be his partner, and makes him start to care about things other than serving the Court. Tim, a boy-genius member of the Court, could have told anyone who listened that pairing Talon with the other boy - Jason - was a poor decision, and the fact that the Grandmaster of the Court doesn't listen, at all, is something he's finding less and less tolerable.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to this _monster_. So, this is my DCU Bang story. Twelve chapters, and you get all of them at once so enjoy! But also, please go read those warnings over again, because this is kind of a nasty thing. Very little is explicit, but there's lots in here. So, you know, be careful. Now, these chapters are going to go in sets of three for PoV; first Dick, then Jason, then Tim. This first one is Dick!
> 
> Art for the story is done by dreammaidenn!  
> Beta-ed by[ Firefright](http://archiveofourown.org/users/firefright)!  
> Other art by [boxymilk](http://boxymilk.tumblr.com/post/153929511220/please-go-read-this-talonsau-fic-by-skalidra-its)!  
> And another piece by [Duckie](https://twitter.com/ahiru_duckie/status/867233672369491968)!

He's nine when they come for him. Staring at the bodies of his parents, crying and unable to stop the shaking of his hands and shoulders. He fights when arms wrap around his chest, pulling him to his feet and away from the lingering proof of a snapped rope and the _crunch_ of bone against unforgiving ground. He shouts and struggles against the inexorable pull of two men in black and white uniforms, flashing badges matching the flashing lights of the car they pull him to.

There's a brief moment where there's a man that steps in their way, blue eyes sad and smile a forced thing, and there are words exchanged but he doesn't understand them. Can't think beyond the _snap_ and _crunch_ and _screams_. Whatever it is it doesn't stop them from pushing him into that car and driving away, even as he slams his palms against the window.

By the time they draw to a stop he's curled up in one corner of the backseat, crying silent tears into his knees and not registering where they are, at least not until he's pulled from the seat by the same unforgiving hands, up white stairs and into a mess of desks and activity. When they push him down into a chair, one leaving while the other stays at his side, it slowly becomes clear where he is.

A police station, far away from the circus and everyone he knows, from—

 _Snap_.

He curls up as small as possible in the chair and tries not to draw any more attention.

People come and go; some try to talk to him, some just stare, some talk over him in hushed voices they probably think he's too out of it to hear. They're not really wrong. He longs for the lights of the circus, for the comfort of all the other troupe members, his _family_. Not blood but blood never mattered in the ring, not among the circus people. They're his _family_.

Eventually someone pulls him from the chair, and he staggers to his feet and looks up to meet the eyes of a sympathetic looking woman. He ducks away from it, but the hold of the cop at his arm is unrelenting and he's not allowed to shrink back to the relative safety of the chair. He doesn't have a choice but to endure the trail of her fingers over his cheek, taking his jaw and tilting it up so he has to meet her eyes.

"Richard? Sweetheart? I'm from social services; we're going to be taking custody of you until family can be found, alright?"

He shakes his head, but his refusal doesn't seem to matter to her because the cop holding him just drags him out at her heels, back out into the dark of the night and to a small, white car. He's pushed into the backseat, a seat belt strapped down over his chest and he hears the distinctive _click_ of a lock when the door shuts. He still pulls the handle, just to see, but the door stays firmly closed.

The woman gets into the car as well, but doesn't say anything as she pulls away from the police station, back out into the maze of streets and too-tall buildings. He curls his arms over his chest, staring out the window and not quite able to get any of his questions out of his throat. Like _why?_ The circus is his home, it's his family. _Why_ would they take him from that? _Why?_

The trip feels like it lasts forever, until they draw to a stop underneath the shadow of a bridge, and he watches in confusion as the woman turns the car off and gets out. There's something _wrong_ , and he struggles when she opens his door and reaches in to disconnect his seat belt and pull him back out of the car.

At least until she snaps an irritated command of, "Stop!" and _slaps_ him hard enough to make his head snap around.

He freezes up, wide-eyed and scared as she yanks him out of the car, one hand hard around his upper arm and the other curled in his hair. His cheek stings, feeling hot compared to the rest of his skin and against the cold air, and he can feel the tears gathering again, feel the shock sliding away to leave him with pain and fear. He can only stagger along with her as she pulls him around the car, to the shadow of what looks like some kind of maintenance entrance; stairs leading down to the vague shadow of a door.

Until it _moves_ , and he gasps as what he thought was shadow moves part way up the stairs, solidifying into a man in a skintight black suit with golden bits of metal accenting it, the hilt of a sword over his right shoulder and rows of small golden knives attached in rows up his ribs. Golden metal gives the man _claws_ , and a black hood covers his head, small points at the top and a pair of orange goggles giving the vague appearance of an _owl_.

The woman throws him forward, down the steps, and he cries out on reflex even as the man at the bottom catches him. "Take him to the Court," she orders. "Tell them I'll make the calls to spin the story and report to them as soon as I can."

"Yes, Mistress," the man holding him says, voice a bit muffled.

He panics, but before he can even _scream_ like he wants to there's a hand clasping over his mouth, claws digging into his jaw as the man pins his head back against a broad chest. He struggles, but his frantic kicks and elbows don't have any effect on the man holding him, and don’t stop the man pulling him to the shadow of that door and then dragging him into the blackness within. He can't see anything but vague shapes, but by the smell he guesses it's some kind of sewer system, or at least some thing like that. There's no splashing as he's carried deeper into it though, and that…

The hand stays firmly over his mouth, the other arm hooked around his chest and pinning him back with strength that doesn't feel natural. He stops struggling when he starts to shake, gasping into the palm over his mouth and breathing hard, hands gripping uselessly at the sturdy material covering the man's arm. His legs are hanging, too short to touch the ground with the man holding him up like this, lending a strange sort of unreality to the world. With only blackness in front of his eyes, and nothing but air for his feet to touch, he has absolutely no idea how far they've gone.

Eventually there's a pause in the man's stride, and then a door directly in front of them opens. He cries out into the hand at the sharp burn of light into his eyes, squeezing them shut against the pain. The man doesn't seem to have that problem, because there's no hesitation when he's carried into whatever is behind that light.

He manages to crack his eyes open just a little bit, getting a blurry slice of white walls and floors in a long corridor. It's brightly lit, painfully so, and he has to close his eyes again to stop the burn. He shakes a bit harder, and the man's grip tightens on him like he thinks he's about to start fighting again. He doesn't, just digs his fingers harder into the man's arm and tries to stop the tears gathering at the corners of his eyes.

A door opens, and the sound of the man's footsteps disappears, which is enough for him to try opening his eyes again. It's not as painful this time, but he only gets a blurry view of a red, carpeted floor and wooden walls before the man is letting go. He _thumps_ to the floor, knees buckling under his weight, and gasps in shock. Then he's getting shoved forward to sprawl against the carpet, hands coming up but not fast enough to stop his face from hitting the floor.

He scrambles up to his knees again, lifting his head to try and get a grasp on where the man who took him is before he realizes that what he took for wooden walls are actually _stands_. He follows the length of them up to the crowd at the top, fingers curling against the carpet at the men and women in the seats up there, round white masks covering their faces so they're only recognizable by their hair and clothing. Directly in front of him the stands extend out a bit, and one of the people is standing on that extension, dressed in a white suit with a black cape over it and looking down at him over the wooden podium at the end.

"Masters," the man behind him says, speaking just loud enough for the audience to hear him. "The Gray Son of Gotham, as you ordered."

Gray Son? As in _Grayson?_ What’s going _on?_

He gets up cautiously, staring up at that sea of white faces, heart pounding hard enough he can feel it in his bones. The head of the main one tilts a bit, watching him, but the room is silent and it unnerves him. Silent crowds are _bad_. They're either holding their breath out of anticipation or withholding reaction from disapproval but either way that's not _good_ and he doesn't like it one bit.

"Talon," the main one says, voice carrying easily down into the… pit, arena, ring? "Present him to us."

"Yes, Grandmaster."

He doesn't understand the command until there's a _wrench_ to the back of his costume, and it tears with a sick noise as his back arches under the force. He shouts a wordless protest, tries to get away, but a second hand closes in his hair and holds him still as the man — Talon? — tears the costume off of him. He fights, lands a few wild kicks that don't do anything, before he's being dragged forward and pushed to his knees. The hand in his hair lets go, he turns his head to track the man, and there's a _schling_ of metal as golden bars shoot out of the _floor_.

He yelps, jerking back, and his back collides with more of those metal bars, cold against his now bare skin. He jerks, spins around on his knees to find himself in what seems to amount to a small, circular cage, the bars too close for him to cram himself through the gaps. The top curves together, but before he can get a closer look at it a hand grabs his arm and drags him to his feet.

"No!" he shouts, pulling uselessly against those golden claws as Talon pulls his arm up and clicks his wrist into a similarly golden cuff at the top of the cage. It leaves him stretched out, standing on his tiptoes and with the cuff tight against his wrist; the cage is too tall for him to stand securely.

Talon catches his other arm, and he's just as helpless to stop his second arm from being restrained as he was the first. He's even less capable of stopping it when Talon takes one of his ankles, pulling his leg out and locking it against one of the golden bars. When the same happens to his other one his weight falls on his wrists, and he cries out at the pain of the cuffs digging into his skin and the burn of his shoulders.

He can _do_ this, he can lift his entire weight with his arms no problem, but not like this. Not when his ankles are held down and he can't curl to support himself.

He waits for the next grip but Talon's stepped away from him, disappeared back somewhere behind him where he can't see. He swallows down the desperate sound that tries to claw its way up from his chest, looking up at the audience as he breathes in hard, sharp gasps. The men and women up there are speaking to each other in quiet murmurs, all just _watching_ him, and that's a feeling that's not unfamiliar but here it _scares_ him. This is so different from a performance.

The leader slips away from the podium, and he tracks the movement as long as he can until it's lost among the rest of them, since some of them are also rising and moving. He squeezes his eyes shut, pulling against the cuffs as much as he can even as they dig into his skin. The tears in the corners of his eyes slip free, sliding down his cheeks to add more tear tracks to the rest.

The murmurs are the only sound for a while, before there's the rustle of cloth _much_ closer. He snaps his eyes back open, doing it just in time to see a gloved hand reach through the bars and touch his side, fingers prodding at the tender spaces between his ribs. He tries to squirm away but there's no give in the way he's been tethered, and the best he manages is to twist about an inch away at the cost of _sharp_ pain in his left wrist.

"Don't," he begs, voice gone thin with fear. " _Don't_."

The owner of the hand, the masked and caped one that was up behind the podium, ignores him, fingers continuing their exploration of his side. Up close that mask is easier to see, and it's easier to realize that it has the same vague owl-motif as Talon's suit did. He stares, shivering as the hand slides over his stomach, and then up the center of his chest until it grips his chin, pushing his head up to bare his throat. He gives a helpless sound as his head tilts back, and his own arm obscures his view of the leader.

"Good muscle," the leader says. There's a metallic edge to his voice, like some kind of machine or like he's speaking into a pipe. "Adequate skill given age. No major problems at a first glance." The hand lets him go, and then the leader's voice rises and announces, "He's accepted! He'll be trained!"

The murmur is louder, has a pleased edge.

"Talon," the leader summons. "Silence him, and when the Court is finished inspecting him take him to the cells. Then report to me."

"As you wish, Grandmaster," comes the obedient reply, even as he sucks in a sharp breath at the first part of that order.

The leader turns to leave, and then a hand closes in his hair and yanks his head back. He opens his mouth to cry out, but suddenly there's leather between his teeth and pulling hard back against the corners of his mouth, choking him for a second. His head is shoved back down, but the leather stays pulled tight against his cheeks and doesn’t give. He still cries out, but it's muffled against the intrusive taste and presence of the leather bit pressing his tongue down against the bottom of his mouth.

Then there's a hand — bare skin — against the small of his back, and he jerks and tries to struggle but it doesn't get him anywhere. Ignoring his fighting, the hand slides up his back, tapping against each vertebrae of his spine on its way up. He whines into the gag, eyes wide and threatening even more tears, as the hand closes over the back of his neck, squeezing painfully hard before retreating along with the sound of a laugh from behind him.

"The Gray Son of Gotham, huh?" someone asks, and he twists his head to look around, finding — to his _horror_ — that he's surrounded by a collection of the people in the white masks. "A lot of talk about this kid."

"Descendant of one of the older Talons," someone else answers, "apparently one of our better ones, according to my father. Besides, you've read the articles haven't you? Boy's a prodigy."

A hand touches his shoulder, and then slides up into his hair. He braces himself for the pull, but the fingers just stroke over his scalp. Unlike a second hand, which touches his lower arm and then immediately pinches the skin hard enough to make him yelp into the gag.

"Useless without obedience and loyalty. Why are we replacing our current Talon again?"

"That's not it," a woman's voice says, in tandem with a hand that scratches nails across his stomach. "This Talon is fine, but it's always best to search for a replacement ahead of time. We don't want to be left without one, should something happen, and a Talon isn't really a Talon unless it keeps proving itself."

"She's right," says yet another voice in front of him, and he raises his gaze to a man in a very expensive suit, standing with both hands in his pockets. "If this one is better, he'll earn the title. If not, it's just another possible Talon dead at the hands of his predecessor. It's hardly new."

The woman laughs, and then a hand ghosts back and _slaps_ his ass, and he yelps again and thrashes against both the bonds and the touches. "Shame this one's not headed for our _other_ training, isn't it? He's got the looks for it already; imagine when he grows into those eyes and that hair."

"I'm sure if you want something black-haired and blue-eyed and _young_ , a servant can procure it for you, dear. From our stock or not."

"I said when he grows into it, didn't I? Unlike _some_ of you, I don't have any interest in sleeping with a child." There's a scattering of laughter, and the hand leaves his hair only to be replaced by one that touches his thigh and slides up to a hip. "Maybe I'll take him for a test ride when he's a Talon though, if he stays this pretty."

"He might. Well, if you don't mind him having yellow eyes and a few scars."

"I suppose we'll see, won't we? Assuming he doesn't die in training." Another sharp pinch to one arm, and then the woman's voice fades a bit. "Join me for a late dinner, darling? Let the servants get down to the nastier work?"

"Of course, dear. Shall we?"

He shakes, overwhelmed by the circle of white masks looking down at him and the casual, entitled touches exploring his skin and hair and places _no one_ has a right to without his permission. He stops struggling, letting his head hang and just crying what feels like a never-ending supply of tears, completely incapable of stopping them. All of this is just so _wrong_.

Eventually the masked people drift away, finally leaving him alone in the cage. It's only a minute after that when a hand touches his right ankle, and the cuff on it comes loose with a click. His leg falls in, toes brushing the carpet, and he has just enough presence of mind to brace them against the floor and get a tiny bit of weight off of his wrists. He tilts his head a bit and finds Talon circling him, moving to kneel next to his other leg and undo that cuff as well.

Then his wrists are undone, first one then the other, and he cries out as he collapses to the floor, shoulders burning and wrists stinging. He's not at all surprised when he pries his eyes open and finds that there are faintly bleeding scratches around his wrists, and a tiny trail of blood down his right arm. The bars of the cage shoot back down into the ground, and he flinches before he's being grabbed and lifted, tossed over one shoulder of the Talon with an arm tight around his thighs to hold him in place.

He finds it in him to jerk against the hold, even as blood rushes to his head. The air is knocked out of him every time his stomach impacts with Talon's shoulder, and he can’t keep it up for much more than a minute before the exhaustion and the pain get to him and he slumps in the man's hold. But at least it's something, even if Talon is as unaffected by him pounding fists into the man's back as he has been everything else.

He tries to pay some kind of attention to the path they take, through corridors of grey concrete and darkness in stark contrast to the blindingly white ones from before, but he loses track pretty quickly. There's not much distinction between them, and he's got a pretty terrible view unless he cranes his head up at awkward angles so he can actually see more than just Talon's legs and the floor. He doesn't have the strength to do that for long.

It doesn't feel all that long before Talon opens a door and carries him a few steps into whatever room is behind it, then unceremoniously dumps him to the floor, which is concrete and _very_ hard against his bare skin. He gasps around his gag, wincing and trying to get his bearings, until what he's pretty sure is Talon's boot steps down in the middle of his back and shoves him flat against the floor.

"I've been ordered to report to the Grandmaster, Sir," Talon says above him. "Do you want anything before I go?"

He twists his head, trying to look around the room and get some idea of who Talon is speaking to. The room is flat, grey concrete for all four walls, floor, and ceiling, with a single built-in light at the top keeping it mostly illuminated. There's a man sitting on a wooden chair, which is the only piece of furniture in the room apart from a table to one side of the room that looks a lot like an examination table, including restraints.

"No," the man says, as he stands. "Go report, Talon; I'll handle our new recruit."

Talon shoves down on his back before stepping off, and the breath rushes right back out of him, leaving him gasping as he hears the door shut. The other man walks forward, and he tries to scramble away but his back hits concrete, and a second later the man grabs a handful of his hair and wrenches him up to his knees. He cries out in pain, and then again in fear when the man drags him across the room and to that table.

The man seems to anticipate every single way he tries to struggle, and — after a hard backhand that knocks him against the floor and leaves the taste of blood on his tongue — he ends up strapped down to the table, ankles and wrists hooked at each corner and leaving him spread and vulnerable.

"Let's get a look at you," the man murmurs. "Looks like they didn't 'inspect' you all that roughly; that's good. Always best to start with a fresh canvas."

He jerks against the restraints, pleading against the gag, but the man ignores him. The hands on him feel more professional than the ones of the masked people, but they're still invasive and exploratory and he _doesn't_ like it. Especially not paired with the studying gaze, like he's some kind of specimen.

"Listen," the man orders, gaze not rising from his body. "Out there? That was the Court of Owls; the ruling power behind Gotham for centuries. You are the latest in a long line to be recruited to be trained as Talon, which is the name of their enforcer. That man who brought you in? He's the current Talon. I am the one who's going to train you, and you will call me 'Sir.' Any member of the Court is either 'Master or 'Mistress,' use 'Master' if you're not sure of the gender. The one in the cape, that's the Grandmaster, and that's what you'll call them."

The man looks up, meeting his gaze. "We'll get into other rules, but for now here are the two I want you to commit to heart. Do not speak unless asked a direction question, and _do not_ fight. Your body is no longer your own, it belongs to the Court, and they have the right to do whatever they want to it. Any disobedience will cost you. You'll learn that. When I'm done with you, you'll be just as loyal as the other Talons I've trained, and you'll thank me for it. Am I clear so far?"

He nods, terrified, and the man gives a thin smile.

"Good. Let's begin."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2! Time for some Jason PoV!

He’s ten when they take him. He curls up to sleep in the most protected corner of his ratty apartment, and in the middle of the night he startles awake for a reason he can’t explain, but _trusts_. After these last couple years on the streets, he knows better than to ignore his instincts, and for some reason they’re screaming at him.

He presses his back against the wall and looks up into the rest of the apartment, baring his teeth and shaking off the last clinging shreds of sleep. He can’t find anything in the shadows, but that feeling that something is wrong won’t go away. There's something that isn't _right_. Something is in his space and that's way too dangerous for him to ignore. If he just tries to go back to sleep, he could get gutted, or something a whole lot worse. It's not a great apartment — shitty and drafty, actually — but it's still a roof which is way better than living out on the streets. He _fought_ for this apartment, and he'll be damned if he lets anyone else get the jump on him and take it back.

Getting to his feet is easy, but he stays low and crouched, ready to move any way he needs to. He closes his hand around the hilt of the knife hidden inside the pocket of his sweatshirt, pulling it out and flicking it open with a practiced twist of his wrist. Another sweep of his gaze still doesn't show anything, but the hair at the back of his neck is standing straight up and little prickles of fear are sliding down his spine, almost making him want to shiver.

"Whoever the _fuck_ you are," he snarls into the silence, "you show yourself or I swear to god I'll gut you. This place is _mine_."

Just more silence.

If this wasn't Gotham, if this wasn't _Crime Alley_ , he might think that he's just imagining things. But he was raised in this hellhole and Gotham is not other places. There are fucked up, creepy things in Gotham, and he's spent his whole life avoiding danger in one form or another. First the fists of his dad, and then things one hell of a lot worse once 'home' was gone. Other kids, cops, gang members, and the truly _fucked_ up criminals lurking in the corners no one wants to look.

So he slides to his feet, shifting his grip on the knife and edging along the wall to keep it at his back. Out of instinct he raises his gaze for a moment, sweeping the ceiling too, but there's nothing up there either. The singular, no-longer-boarded window — he ripped the boards off when he moved in for an easier emergency exit — is the first target, and he jerks level with it ready to stab or _hurt_ anything waiting for him. Nothing is, even when he carefully steps up against it and looks down towards the street. He draws back, continuing his circuit towards the cracked door to the totally non-functional bathroom. That's the only other hidden place in this apartment; the kitchen was ripped out a long time ago.

He gets halfway to the door before there's a slight sound from behind him, and he turns and _strikes_.

A shadow of black and gold ducks under his swing, flattening to the ground and sweeping his legs out from under him in one smooth movement. He gasps when he hits the ground, breath leaving his lungs but he knows better than to let that stop him. He kicks out towards the shadow as he scrambles backwards, clutching the hilt of the knife, but the thing slips to the side of his kick and follows. He realizes in a flash that it's a person, not a thing. Legs, arms, all in a skintight black and gold bodysuit. Not the strangest thing he's seen before, but then none of the other things have been specifically interested in _him_.

It's faster than him, and it doesn't give him the opportunity to get back, just gets over him and wraps strong hands around his arms, _slamming_ him against the ground. He writhes, lashing out with his legs to try and get the thing off of him as he gasps for the air that’s been knocked out of him. It lets go of his arms to shove his legs back down, so he slashes his knife up at its hooded face. That gets it to grab his arm again, slamming it back to the wooden floor hard enough that his fingers go numb for a second and the knife clatters to the floor. But that second lets him reach up with the other hand and get a hold of its hood, _ripping_ it off even as the knife falls from his hand.

It's a boy.

He stares at the pale skin and black hair of a kid that can't be more than a couple of years older than him, even if those yellow-orange eyes are decidedly _not_ human looking. Staring costs him, because the next second his other hand is being shoved to the floor, and both of them are pinned down as the maybe-human shifts up and settles over his chest, weight compressing his lungs.

"What _are_ you?" he gasps, when he has a tiny bit of breath back and after struggling doesn't make the boy shift at all.

No answer. The boy shifts over him, one knee pressing his upper right arm into the floor so that a hand is free, reaching into some sort of pocket he can't even see in that suit and retrieving a syringe.

He pales, jerks, and snaps, " _Fuck_ no! Get the hell off me!"

His other arm is pulled up, straightened out against his will and the boy pulls the cap off the syringe with his teeth. He curses, struggles, but those yellow eyes don't pay him any attention, and the knee and weight pinning him seem totally immovable. He smacks at the boy's thigh with his right hand, but that doesn't seem to get him any more attention than the almost-literal _dance_ his lower half is doing.

He cries out when the needle sinks into the crook of his elbow, not from the sting of it but from the _fear_. Getting injected with unknown liquids by people in costumes is pretty generally a _terrible thing_. His arm is held still until the boy pulls the needle back out, and then presses fingers to the injection site, apparently to stop any flow of blood.

" _No_ ," he gasps, hitting the boy's thigh with his hand as hard as he can manage. " _No_ , don't! Jesus, whatever the fuck you want I'll give it just _don't!_ "

The boy finally looks down at him, yellow eyes meeting his gaze with cool focus and no visible care for his panic. The fingers pressing down on his elbow ease off, and his arm is pinned down by one hand while the other hand reaches over and picks the hood he tore off up from the floor. The motion of tugging the hood back on looks practiced, obscuring the boy's face and hiding it behind black and gold fabric, eyes completely invisible past the orange goggles sewn into it.

"Get _off!_ " he shouts, and at that the boy's head tilts a little bit, cocking like some kind of bird.

A second later the boy's hand comes down and grabs his jaw, clasping over his mouth and holding it shut. Jerking away doesn't get him anywhere, so he shouts muffled protests and threats into the hand over his mouth. None of it is actually understandable. The kicking of his feet and legs isn't doing jack shit, he can't reach anything useful with his hands, and the palm over his mouth is holding him still enough that he can't get it off of his face. It's frustratingly efficient, and there's a _feeling_ in his gut that makes him sure that this is going to be so much worse than he thinks it is.

Normal people is one thing, costumed freaks are another, but getting ambushed in an apartment by a costumed freak who wants to _drug_ him? Something is going on here that’s so far past what he can understand.

His struggles weaken, and at first he just thinks of it as muscle weakness, until he catches his eyelids starting to slip down. Then he realizes with a sickening lurch that it's definitely some kind of effect of whatever the freak injected him with, which is _bad_. Probably worse than it just flat out killing him, which doesn't seem likely anymore unless this is some kind of really _nice_ death by drugs. What are the chances of that, really?

The hand on his mouth tightens as he fights harder, panicking at the idea that the drug in his system is going to knock him out and then he'll be _really_ helpless. Not that he's doing great right now, but at least he's got the _option_ of fighting. If he's out they could do _anything_ to him.

He tries to dig his nails into the boy's legs, but whatever kind of material that suit is made of doesn't even really let him get a grip. He pounds at it instead, but nothing happens, and he loses the ability to hit with any kind of strength before too long. He holds on as long as he can, squirming and jerking and trying to _fight_ the exhaustion weighing him down, but it's no good.

He fades into blackness.

* * *

When he comes back to consciousness he's somewhere completely different, sprawled out on what feels like concrete. He manages to lift his head after a few seconds, vision still a little blurry and his mind fogged, but aware enough that he's starting to feel uneasy even before he sees what's around him.

Concrete walls on three sides, with the fourth being evenly spaced metal bars, and beyond that a corridor with other, similar cells. There are some odd pieces of furniture in the cell he's in, with open cuffs that make him instantly wary and more than a little disturbed. It looks like mostly leather and wood, but he doesn't really recognize what they are beyond the fairly nice bed in the corner. Some disturbing connections click together in his head involving the combination of odd furniture with restraints, a nice bed, and a _cell_.

He staggers to his feet, swallowing and trying to not breathe too fast or hard as he deals with the faint dizziness of whatever's left in his system, and the scary thoughts taking root in the back of his mind.

He doesn't really want to approach any of the furniture so he moves over to the bars instead, hands pressing against them as he tests the gaps. It's too thin, even for him; he can fit up to his shoulder but nothing more. The door in it looks too sturdy for him to get through, at least without some kind of tool. _Maybe_ , if he could find something, he might be able to pick the lock or get the hinges undone, but that's a hell of an if. Granted, there's a lot of stuff in here; maybe he can take something apart enough to get something to work the lock open with.

Before he can work up the courage to approach any of the furniture, the heavy clunk of a door echoes down the corridor, followed by footsteps. He jerks away from the bars, pulling back into the cell. From farther down the corridor he hears a sound disturbingly like a whimper, before the sharp impact of something against metal; the footsteps don't pause.

He stands a few feet back from the cell, hands curling to fists as he stares at what he can see of the corridor and _waits_.

It's only a few moments before two men come into view, and the boy who abducted him is just behind them. The hood is gone from his face, and his gaze is lowered, looking pretty distinctly subservient to the men ahead of him. One of the two men is taller and thicker than the other, wearing what looks like fairly sturdy body armor, and the other is in normal fabric; clothing that looks richer than most of what he normally sees.

He might panic just a little bit when the richer-looking one unlocks the door to his cell, holding it open and then beckoning forward the boy in the skintight black and gold uniform.

"Talon, strip and restrain him."

His eyes widen, and he sucks in a sharp breath as the boy heads for him, movements a smooth stalking stride that looks really predatory. He bares his teeth, doesn't _dare_ look away from the other boy or back up because he doesn't remember exactly what's behind him and if he tries he might just crash right into something.

"Get the fuck away from me!" he snarls, clenching his hands tighter and raising them a bit.

The boy doesn't even acknowledge it, just suddenly lunges forward the last few feet between them. He swings but the boy ducks right underneath, slipping around his back and sliding one _clawed_ hand around his side. He yelps, jerking away from the sudden slices in his clothes. Something hits the back of his knees, knocking him to the ground before the boy hits the middle of his back, flattening him down against the floor and knocking the breath out of him.

He tries to push up, but weight settles over his back and keeps him pinned down. Then hands are tugging at his clothing, and it takes him a second to realize that his clothes are getting shredded off of his back, then another to start actually fighting. He flails backwards, but just like before, nothing he does seems to have any effect. He just feels like some kind of helpless prey creature underneath the thing about to kill it, which is stupid because no one would put someone in a cell like this and then just kill them; it would be totally pointless.

He curses at the boy above him, and apparently that's enough of an annoyance to get him somewhere because one of the men near the door snaps, "Talon, gag him."

His head gets pulled up by the wrench of a hand, and then there are fingers dragging his mouth open, prying his jaw apart. He gasps before metal shoves into his mouth, cold against his tongue as it gets pushed between teeth. Metal pulls against his cheeks as well, and then leather ties tight around the back of his head, wrenching the thing a bit deeper into his mouth. He tries to yelp, but his mouth is held open and awkward by the ring forced into it.

Shouting works just about as well, though he keeps trying right up until he gets dragged up to his feet and manhandled out of the remaining shreds of his sweatshirt and shirt. His gaze flashes over the men behind the bars, the ceiling, the floor, the slip of a black arm as it hooks at the waistband of his jeans, and something in him just _reacts_.

He lashes backwards, slamming one elbow into the boy’s side with all the strength he can muster — enough to get him a tiny inwards bow, but no real response — and then twists his arm up, where memory tells him to, and grabs the handle of one of those golden knives strapped to the boy’s ribs. He yanks it out of its sheath, twists it in his hand to get a better angle, and _stabs_ as hard as he can manage. It’s hard enough to get through that layer of armor, and he feels it sink deep.

The boy actually makes a sharp, pained noise, and the next second he’s being let go. He takes immediate advantage, spinning around to face his opponent as he backs off a few steps, putting distance between them. The boy has a hand to his side, around the hilt of that knife, and white teeth are bared in some expression of pain, yellow eyes fixed on him with a disturbing level of intensity.

“Talon,” the bigger man calls, and those yellow eyes flick over towards the door of the cell. He doesn’t dare, so he can only judge expression based on voice when he hears the hard comment of, “That was a mistake.”

Is the boy’s _name_ Talon? Or is that like some kind of title?

Those eyes lower their gaze for a moment, and then refocus on him. He snarls as best he can around the stupid metal gag, trying to ignore how he can’t really _swallow_ , and curls his hands to fists as he glares at the boy.

“Pity _I’m_ not training him,” comes the comment from behind him; bigger one. “He’s got the instincts for Talon work.”

“You mean he has _passion_ ,” the other one counters. “You would just break that in half like you do everything else; _I_ can channel it.”

Talon pulls the knife from his side, hissing through those bared teeth, and then lets it drop to the ground. Not even a half a moment later he’s being _lunged_ at, and he holds back his desire to just swing and hope for the best — that’s worked out _great_ so far — and waits a second longer so he can do his best to dodge the hands grabbing for his arms. That doesn’t last long though. He manages a couple of jerks away, but way too soon there are fingers wrenching his arms behind his back, pushing him down with one foot digging into the back of his knee and keeping him pinned. At least enough that he can't get free when his wrists are strapped into some kind of leather cuffs with _no_ give.

Then he's shoved forward, and without his arms to catch himself he crashes straight down onto his face, only able to turn enough that it's the side of his face instead of right on his nose. A knee slams down in the center of his back, knocking the air out of him with a whoosh and leaving him totally unable to concentrate enough to stop the clawed hands jerking his jeans down his legs. He kicks a bit when his sneakers get pulled off before the jeans, but the knee on his back just lifts and _shoves_ back down, and that's the end of him fighting for another few seconds. Long enough for the same kind of leather cuffs to get snapped around his ankles.

"This one _needs_ to be broken," the bigger of the two men says, as Talon drags him up to his feet.

He teeters a bit, but one hand grips his arm and one tangles in his hair, keeping him upright but held far enough forward that he's not actually touching any of that suit, or in grabbing range of the weapons on it. Talon turns him to face the two men at the door, not quite yanking him but close. He struggles, trying to get away from the grip, but apart from jerking his shoulders a bit there's not really anything he can do. His ankles are bound together, his arms are behind his back and useless, and the hand in his hair is keeping his head still. Even if he could get loose, the best he could do would be to either hop, or fall over.

Not exactly helpful.

He squirms extra hard when the men obviously, blatantly, look him over. He really _wants_ to spit some snarky comment about not getting goods till they pay for it — not that he's ever sunk quite that low in his life but he's _thought_ about it — but the best he can do is make a sound around the gag that comes out as something between a snarl and some kind of whine; not a sound he's proud he made, in retrospect. He doesn't like the implications of any of this.

"You think everything needs to be broken," the one in the richer clothes says, with a roll of his eyes. " _Your_ style of breaking would leave him unusable for any purpose but another one of your attack dogs."

That gets a sharp, unfriendly smirk from the other one. "Court values _my_ Talons over your whores."

"In public. It's not your _Talons_ they enjoy behind closed doors, now is it?" The richer man moves forward, stepping into the cell, and the other follows a step behind. "Your dogs don't know how to fake a smile, let alone mold themselves to the desires of dozens of different people. They're useless for anything that doesn't end in murder."

The smaller man reaches forward, sliding fingers over his jaw, and he _thrashes_ , hard enough the Talon behind him actually has to shift grips to keep him standing. He shouts wordless threats, until the larger man steps in and casually backhands him, knuckles hitting high against his temple to avoid the metal of the gag, snapping his head to the side despite the grip in his hair. He hangs for a second, stunned.

"Your new whore's got a temper." The bigger man steps back, closer to the smaller one, and leans in to speak a little more quietly. "Break him of it, or I'll do it my way. Talon! Put him on his knees, and come with me."

Talon pushes him down to his knees, shoves his head down, and circles around to follow the bigger man. By the time he looks back up they're most of the way out of the cell, and the next moment the other man is stepping in front of him and blocking his view. A hand lowers, gripping his jaw and pulling him up to an awkward high kneel where he has to fight to keep his balance.

"Let's try this first introduction again, shall we?" the man says, with a smile that he'd definitely call _cruel_. "I know you can't at the moment, but when I let you have time without that gag you're going to call me 'Sir.' I don't really expect you to, but I trust that over time you'll learn that you have a new role in life, and fulfilling it will be the only way you'll convince anyone that you're worth keeping around. My students who _don't_ , well, they have a habit of getting given to the Talons for target practice, if they're lucky. That clear so far?"

He tries for a snarl; _almost_ hits the mark.

"That's about what I thought," the man says, smile still curling his mouth. "Don't worry; you'll learn."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3; circling around to the last of our three main characters. Tim!

He's eight the first time his parents bring him to the Court. They come back from a trip early — which _never_ happens — dress him up in his finest suit, and bundle him into a car that’s waiting outside for them. His mother and father are both dressed equally as upscale as they've dressed him, but not a word is said about the destination, not even over his head.

He's used to them not usually involving him in conversations about plans — he's there to enhance their image and look good in pictures, not to make a nuisance of himself — but usually he can get enough off of their conversations to understand where they're going before they actually get there. The silence, the sudden event, all of it makes him just a little nervous. He didn't hear anything about it from the housekeeper either, not that she usually engages him in conversations either, at least not ones that don't involve his schoolwork, what he's going to eat, or what he's not allowed to do.

He stays silent, as expected, until they pull up in front of a large, lit-up house. When the door of the limo opens, he can hear the faint strains of music floating out from inside. His mother pulls him out of the car, and he's sandwiched between his parents as they head for the door of the home. Still not a word until they're at the door itself, and it's being pulled open by some kind of staff.

The words then are to other guests, the hosts, and his parents are both all smiles; his mother's significantly more edged than his father's. He does the same, smiling where appropriate, shaking hands, and letting the other people ruffle his hair or clasp his shoulders as they want, offering whatever politeness dictates he responds with.

His heart sinks just a bit at the realization that this is just another party; whatever the tension in the car was, it apparently wasn't about this.

He manages to escape to the buffet table at one point, to get some of the snacks on one of the minuscule plates, and that buys him just a little bit of solitude. He wants to curl up in the chair he chooses to eat in, but that's generally frowned upon so he forces himself to sit straight and silent instead, watching the party through the fringe of his bangs and picking out the people he already knows. It's a game for him at this point; like a challenge. He matches faces with names, along with whatever details he can remember about them. Jobs, families, or how they like to greet him and his parents.

The night wears on, and just as he's starting to become tired enough to think about finding some abandoned corner of the house to nap in there's a sudden, dramatic shift in atmosphere. He stands up a little straighter as the people in the room start to file deeper into the house, and then his father's hand is on his back, pushing him along with the flow.

He looks up, inquisitive, but both his parents are following the flow as well, still idly talking with the people nearby. His curiosity _burns_ , but he knows better than to say anything. He just lets his parents guide him along with everyone else, listening to the small talk of the conversations around him for hints he doesn't get.

Then the flow of people slows, stops, and no one seems to find this strange at all so he just waits. Another shift, a dozen more feet forward, stop again. It happens two more time before he's close enough to see what's happening past the wall of adults in front of him. The wall of the house is _swung open_ , and there's an elevator that people are getting into before it heads downwards, only to come back up and admit another group of people. It's interesting enough to fascinate him instantaneously, and he so _wants_ to ask questions but he swallows them down and bites his tongue not to.

Soon enough it's their chance to get in, and his father is the one to guide him in to stand in a corner before the doors shut. It's a _fast_ drop; his stomach lurches a bit but no one else seems to notice let alone care. A couple dozen seconds and it slows, stops, and the doors open again. He loses his grip on his tongue as he's pushed forward by his parents, and handed a white mask at the door by a man on one side, who's _wearing_ one of the white masks he's giving out.

It's sort of owl-like, with a small hooked nose and big, slanted eyes, and the moment it's in his hand his mother is murmuring, "Put it on, Timothy."

He looks up, and the faces that greet him are both already covered by the white masks, even though he recognizes his parents by their clothing still. He swallows and obeys, pulling the mask over his face and pulling the elastic band attached to it around the back of his head to hold it in place. There's a faint black screen over the eyes; he can see through it but it makes everything just a tad darker, and he can't see nearly as much on the sides where the mask blocks his vision.

His parents pull him along with the rest of the people, through rich looking corridors and finally into a larger room that looks a bit like an arena. There's a lowered, fairly large circular bit at the bottom of the room with red carpet and two doors leading into it, and then the portion that he's on, which is raised about a dozen feet above the rest with rows of wooden benches to sit on. A lot are already taken, but his parents guide him forward to one of the closer rows and then pull him between them, pressing him down onto the seat.

He can barely keep from fidgeting.

It feels like a long time before the rows of benches are mostly filled, and everyone’s settled into their spot and into relative silence. Then there are deliberate, clicking footsteps, and he risks twisting his head to look, relieved when it appears that everyone else has shifted to look as well. Someone is walking down the center of the rows, with the same white mask but the addition of a black cape and hood that flares out as they walk right down to one slightly extended part of the risen area and in front of a wooden podium on it.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the Court, welcome!” The voice is male, with an odd, slightly metallic tinge to it that sticks in his ears. “We gather tonight to bear witness to the potential passing of a torch. Our new Talon is ready to challenge his predecessor for the title, or die trying.”

His breath catches a little bit, and he sits up a little bit straighter and almost magnetically follows the flow of attention as almost everyone in the rows looks down into that lower ring. The door on the right side opens, and two figures slip out of it. Both are dressed in the same skin-tight black uniform with golden accents from neck to toe, both have rows of small golden knives on their chests — almost like they’re marking ribs — and both have the same shade of unnatural yellow eyes that look up as they move to stand in the center of the room, about ten feet apart.

One is markedly bigger than the other and clearly a fully grown adult, with short brown hair and the heavy hilt of a sword over his right shoulder. The other is smaller, thinner, and younger — teenager, if he had to guess — with black hair down to about his jaw. He doesn’t have a sword, but he has two longer knives strapped to the outside of his thighs. Both of them have golden attachments over their fingers that it takes him a little bit to realize are metal, and _claws_.

Both of them seem almost unnaturally still too; like statues apart from the slight rise and fall of their chests and the flick of their eyes across the crowd, then up to the man standing on the podium. Their expressions are distinctly different though; the older one has narrowed eyes and an almost angry edge to his gaze, while the younger one almost looks just a bit _nervous_ , behind a mask even Tim's mother would be impressed with.

He's spent a lot of time studying the expressions of people around him while not really being involved in their conversations.

"Talons," the man on the podium calls, and then there's a twist to his voice that sounds like a grin, "prove yourselves."

The instant the last syllable is in the air, the older Talon is grabbing one of the small knives strapped to his ribs and flinging it towards the younger with a practiced flick of that clawed hand. The younger Talon shifts back, turning and drawing those dual blades on his thighs as the thrown knife whizzes past his face with almost no space to spare. The older one draws that large sword as the younger lunges in, partially crouching and holding the knives in opposite direction, one up and one down.

His breath catches hard in his throat as that sword swings down, looking like it's going to cleave the younger one in two for a second before suddenly he's dropping down underneath it and rolling right up against the other's legs, knives shoving upwards. The older one snarls, pulling back one sharp step to avoid getting gutted and then lashing out with a heel that hits dead center in the younger's chest, slamming him onto his back on the floor. Pain is obvious for one long second, where the older Talon moves back in, sword rising and then falling straight for the younger one's chest. The younger Talon jerks both smaller blades up into the path of the larger one, catching and shoving it off to the side to slam into the carpeted floor instead.

A twist of the waist and a sharp kick knocks the older Talon to one knee, before the younger Talon rolls off to the side and to his toes and fingers, crouching low. The older wrenches his sword from the ground, getting back to both feet and baring teeth down at the younger one, who's risen to a higher crouch that's balanced more securely. One moment of tense silence, and then the older one steps forward and swings the sword down towards the other. The younger one reacts instantaneously, hands shifting to his thighs and clicking the knives back onto their sheaths, before _leaping_ up out of the way of the sword with almost no room to spare.

He stares in disbelief as the younger one rises like gravity doesn't have a hold on him, up and over the older and twisting in midair so as he starts to come down he reaches out and _rakes_ both clawed hands from the older Talon's shoulders to mid-back. The older Talon jerks forward, spinning around with that sword swinging out wide. This time it catches the younger one, who can't get out of the way in time, and carves a slice into his right arm, drawing a splatter of blood that blends right in with the carpet.

In retaliation the younger one flings one of those smaller knives strapped to his ribs from the opposite hand. The older Talon swats it out of the air, leaving him just barely open to a lunge forwards where the younger one grabs the wrist holding the sword and digs his claws in as he slams the shoulder into the center of the older one’s chest. It staggers the bigger Talon back a step, but that doesn't stop him from wrapping his free hand around the younger Talon's back and sinking claws into his shoulder before wrenching it back. The younger Talon cries out, arching as he gets yanked backwards but refusing to let go of the older one's wrist.

Suddenly the older one shouts too, and he can't stop himself from gasping as the older Talon shoves the younger back and he can actually see the blade embedded in the older one's side. It's one of the bigger knives that the younger one had too, not just one of the small ones.

The younger is still holding the older Talon's wrist, and the older Talon snarls and kicks out, slamming his heel into the younger Talon's ribs and knocking him back and down, finally forcing him to let go. The sword drops, and with a snarl the older one swaps it to his left hand, blood dripping down from his right wrist. Then, as the younger one rolls back up to standing, the older Talon reaches over and pulls the knife from his side, flinging it off across the room.

The younger Talon draws his second knife, holding it backwards and standing poised on the toes of his feet, focused but not moving. Yet. The older one moves for him, stepping forward and jabbing the sword towards the younger one’s chest in a wickedly fast thrust. It seems to be entirely predicted though, because before it’s even fully extended the younger one is turning sideways and darting forward. His shoulder catches the very edge of the sword but it doesn’t stop him from grabbing the older one’s thigh with that free clawed hand and raking around it as he spins and drives the remaining knife into the lower right part of the older Talon’s back.

The sword falls as the older Talon jerks, arching and flailing backwards with both hands. Those hands catch the younger Talon, tearing through the uniform and into the skin below, but the younger Talon just shoves his weight forward, toppling them both to the ground with him on top. The knife jerks out, and the younger Talon takes just a second to shove the older Talon’s grip off of that arm before driving the knife down higher up. It slides smoothly down into the base of the older Talon’s neck.

One hard _jerk_ , a moment of frozen stillness, and then the older Talon goes limp beneath the younger. Both arms fall to the floor, and the younger Talon stays poised for one long second before drawing the knife out and pushing up from the older Talon’s back. He does it slowly, almost like he’s expecting the other Talon to start moving again.

When he doesn’t, the younger Talon steps away, and then turns towards them and moves to the forward part of the room, before the podium, and sinks down to his knees. His head bows, and that same eerie stillness from before comes back, disrupted only by the sharp rise and fall of his back as he breathes. His back and arms are a mess of ragged cuts and torn uniform, and there’s blood scattered over his face, but given the other Talon’s limp body, he’s definitely the winner.

Another long moment of silence, before the man standing in front of the podium brings both hands together and claps, slow and drawn out. Equally slow, some of the other people in the audience join in. The Talon doesn’t move.

He lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, clenching his hands on the bench beneath him so he doesn’t clap, since neither of his parents are. Beyond the shock, and beyond the strange adrenaline and anticipation in his veins, his mind starts to buzz with _questions_. So many questions, so much he wants to know, and none of it that he can ask right at this second. So he makes a list in his head as he stares down at the winning Talon, feeling really _excited_ for the first time in a long time.

“Congratulations, Talon,” the man at the podium says, with a strange sort of sarcasm. The clapping dies off. “You’ve earned the title.” The Talon lifts his head a tiny bit, gaze turning up but not actually raising his head enough to really be _looking_. “You’re dismissed.”

The Talon bows his head again, then pushes up to his feet and heads for the door they originally came from, leaving the body of the other one and the scattered weapons as they are. The man at the podium turns away from it, and the shift of everyone else’s attention prompts him to wrench his gaze away from the leaving Talon and up to the man instead.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the Court, thank you for your attendance.” One hand rises more or less towards the exit, sweeping upwards. “If you’re leaving, have a good rest of your night. Those who would like to stay for discussion or company, of course the hospitality of the Court is prepared. Just follow me.”

The leader sweeps towards the exit, cape billowing out behind him, and the rest of the Court rises, that low murmur of conversation starting back up. His parents urge him to his feet, guiding him with a hand on his back to steer him after the cloaked man. He takes one last glance back at the ring; the Talon is gone, but there are several people entering through that same door, barefaced and with clothes that seem to imply that they’re workers rather than more of the elegant and rich people he’s part of.

He’s guided back out into the corridors and off in a different direction than the path back to the elevator. Some of the masked people head that direction, but the majority — from what he can see — follow the caped man the same direction as they’re going. It’s not long before they’re pushing through double doors and into a large ballroom, not unlike the one from the house above. There’s similar tables of food and drinks laid out as well, and there are the same servants, still unmasked.

Unlike before, his parents keep him close, his father’s hand still in the middle of his back and keeping him between them. He _itches_ to ask the questions piling up in his head, but the tone of things has turned back to polite conversation and small talk, and it feels as out of place as it did before. So, to keep himself quiet, he goes back to his game from upstairs.

It’s a new challenge to identify the now-masked people from upstairs; trying to remember what they were wearing or identify them based on just their voice and hair. He’s pretty sure that he does alright.

Eventually they circle around to where the caped man is standing — that one he hasn’t identified yet — and his parents guide him right up to the man, who turns towards them with a slight inclination of that masked and hooded head.

“Timothy,” his mother starts, clasping a hand over his shoulder, “this is the Grandmaster, our leader. Grandmaster, this is our son.”

“Ah, yes,” the Grandmaster says, his tone implying a smile, “the youngest Drake. It’s your first time here, isn’t it, Timothy?” He nods, and the Grandmaster gives a quiet laugh. “Quite an event to come to for your first time. Any questions, young man?”

He knows what he’s supposed to say, but what bursts out of his mouth is, “ _Yes_. Lots. What are the Talons? What does ‘Grandmaster’ mean? Who are the Court? What—?”

“ _Timothy_ ,” his mother snaps, tightening her grip on his shoulder and pulling him back an inch.

The Grandmaster laughs, louder this time. “No worries; curiosity is a good thing isn’t it? From what I hear you have a tiny genius on your hands. Why stop that brilliance?” The Grandmaster turns more towards him, face tilting to be obviously pointed downwards. “Tell you what, Timothy, why don’t you come sit down with me and I’ll answer as many of those questions as we have time for. Does that sound good?”

“Yes, please,” he answers, before either of his parents can deny him the opportunity.

“Well then.” The Grandmaster holds out a hand to him, and reluctantly, his parents’ hands pull away from his shoulder and back. “Shall we, little Owl?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Back to Dick; you guys get the pattern now, right?)

He’s fifteen when he takes the title of Talon from his predecessor. Sixteen the first time he’s assigned a mission without a watcher, the first time he gets to see the outside world without someone guiding him along since the Court chose him to serve. The sight of the moon and the blackness of the sky are as unnerving as they are distantly familiar. Seventeen the first time he kills in true service of the Court, quiet and carefully crafted to look like a simple accident, if the watcher didn’t know better.

Just barely eighteen — his trainer, Sir, keeps a calendar in his office — and he is the Court’s Talon, completely. As he was meant to be.

He kills and performs as commanded, and obeys every order given to him by the masked members of the Court. He no longer even cares about the possessive touch of their hands, or the duties he’s sometimes given that are far less than what he’s been trained for. If a Court member wants to restrain and use him, that’s their right. He doesn’t understand the appeal, not when the Court has a whole group of men and women trained for that exact purpose, but it’s not his place to question the Court’s desires. He endures; he’s expected to.

In his downtime, when he’s not in training — which is happening less and less as he proves mastery — he’s allowed to do as he wishes so long as it is within the Court’s walls and doesn’t disturb anyone. Sometimes he trains independently, working on committing movements to pure memory and keeping himself in the shape the Court demands, but sometimes he simply relaxes. Without orders, there’s a simple enjoyment in lying on his bed and just relaxing, letting himself doze in and out and be at peace.

There’s a footstep, and he flicks his eyes open and twists his head to look towards the open archway of his door, before a thin figure slips into it. Shorter than him, a couple years younger, with the same black hair and blue-green eyes similar to what he remembers once having. The boy’s dressed in a black tank-top and loose black sweats, not all that different from what he’s wearing; it’s the Court’s standard gear for a servant that’s not currently serving.

“Talon?”

He sits up a bit farther, enough to make it clear he’s watching without giving up his comfort. The boy is one of the Court’s other brand of servants, trained to please and deceive, and mostly there for the Court to use however they want to. They’re also supposed to serve as his backup, for anything that requires more than just a kill, or requires a target to be coaxed or led away from others. He doesn’t fit in with normal people very well, not with the pale shade of his skin and the yellow eyes.

The boy pauses at the door for another moment before apparently taking his attention as permission and moving in, moving at an angle but staying facing him. He watches, secure in the knowledge that he's miles better trained than this boy and even if it is a test, he can handle one of these servants without having to be entirely on guard first. When the boy sinks down to sit on the floor in front of him, peering up through black bangs, he shifts just enough that one burst of movement could slam his foot into the boy's temple and eliminate the potential opponent. The brand of servants the boy is part of have some training in how to kill — mainly acrobatics and assassination — but most of it is in pleasure, and they're no real threat to him.

"Am I needed?" he asks, when there's no immediate indication of what the boy is there for.

A small shake of the boy's head. "No. Everyone's down for the morning; it's quiet."

Nothing else gets added to that, so he just eases his head back down onto the bed, still watching but not offering any continuation. One of his very first lessons was not to speak unless asked a question, and while that relaxed as he learned what was appropriate to offer and what wasn't, he still finds it easiest to be silent unless called upon to speak. It's simplest when he doesn't have to weigh his words against the possibility of punishment. He's sure that the boy understands.

He's never worked with this one, but he knows him. He's the one who brought him in to be trained; he remembers the vicious snarls and the fight, but only barely recognizes it in the teenager sitting beneath him. There's no fight in the blue-green eyes looking up at him, no hint of the snarl or the shouts of the boy who actually managed to steal a knife and put it in his side. He was whipped for that mistake, but he doesn't blame the boy. Recruits of the Court rarely go quietly, and he should have been paying better attention to where his target's hands were. He still has the scar.

He doesn't know the particulars of how the Court's other servants are trained, but he knows that it can't be all that different from how he was molded. After all, it would take a lot of work to turn the vicious boy he remembers into the subservient teenager he sees now. He also knows that Sir didn't have much of a part in it, because although there are plenty of ways to cause pain without leaving scars — he's been taught most of them — Sir's favorite way to punish is a whip, and the Court's pleasure servants don't have scars. Not anything like his scars, anyway.

The boy shifts a bit, and he carefully watches as the boy tilts and leans forward until he's pressed up against the side of the bed, head lowered to rest on it and near his hip. The boy's tilted towards him, both hands in sight, so he eases any suspicions and just looks down instead, studying. Those eyes are closed, lips parted just a little bit, the heat of his head close enough that he can feel the edges of it against his hip. It's actually kind of a nice feeling, and though it's strange to see a Court servant so obviously vulnerable, it's also interesting in a way he's not sure he understands.

He slowly lifts his upper arm off where it's been resting over his side, reaching down until his fingers meet the smoothness of the boy's hair. Instead of startling, the boy just gives a soft sigh and leans a little harder against the bed, tilting up against his fingers. He carefully runs his fingers through the boy's hair, and gets a second sigh, and the flicker of a tiny smile.

"That feels good," the boy murmurs, utterly relaxed. Those blue-green eyes slide open, rising to meet his gaze. "Couldn't sleep," is the breath of an explanation. "I can go if you want."

"It's fine," he answers, after considering it a moment. Sometimes restless nights happen; and the boy is theoretically supposed to be his ally, even if in practice they're both servants of the Court above all else. He doesn't really mind the company.

He strokes along the boy's scalp, exploring the feeling and the more sensitive spots that his fingertips find. The boy all but melts into the bed, head slowly easing further down until it's actually pressed up against his hip, heat bleeding into his skin through the thin fabric of his sweatpants. He never quite relaxes enough to close his eyes again, but he does find easy comfort in the rhythmic pass of his fingers through the boy's hair, and the equally rhythmic sound of the boy breathing.

Until the soft question of, "You had a name once, right?" His fingers pause, and the boy opens his eyes and shifts to look up. "I mean, I know you're Talon now, but you had a normal one before all this, didn't you?"

A little thrill of unease runs down his spine, memories leaping to life at the back of his mind and reminding him that no, Richard Grayson is dead. "Yes," he answers, keeping his voice short and quiet to not betray that unease. He hasn't been normal, or Grayson, for a long time. He's Talon, and the Gray Son that was promised to the Court years ago; the child in the circus uniform was a different person.

"What was it?" the boy asks.

He draws his hand away, almost shifts entirely away but manages to restrain his movement to just that withdrawal. "I shouldn't," he murmurs, with an automatic flicker of his gaze up to where he knows the camera in his room is. The boy, without actually moving, follows his gaze up for just a moment.

Then the boy's head turns, mouth hidden against the bed and voice only a little bit muffled as he offers, "You know, the Court doesn't like there to be a record of them indulging in my brand of training." There's a calculating edge to that blue gaze for a moment, before it softens away, becomes subservient again. "No surveillance in my room. No audio, no cameras. If you want to relax?"

There are a lot of things that he could say to that, but instead he just holds that gaze, and then gives a small nod.

The boy lifts up, a small smile on his face, and gets up. "Alright, so come teach me a few tricks, Talon." He almost doesn't understand, until a little flicker of the boy's gaze towards the camera.

"I could use a spar," he answers, being sure to not look at the camera.

He slips off the bed, getting to his feet and then following when the boy gives another small smile and then heads for the door. There's a sort of grace to the boy's movements that he reads as he walks behind, letting himself be led towards — he has to assume — the boy's room. A sway and careful way he steps, toe to heel, that makes him pretty much soundless, and a way he stands that's poised and tall, like there's some kind of wire stringing him up and keeping him that way. He's had his own training to stand tall, to move soundlessly, and he's certainly graceful, but he doesn't walk or stand like the boy does. There's something different he can't quite pinpoint, and it's fascinating.

He knows the way that the boy leads him, deep through the concrete corridors and then out into richer, carpeted ones. The ones where the Court conducts their real business, away from the utility of the concrete and inside lavish wooden paneling and the best furnishings money can buy. Apparently also where the pleasure side of the Court's business happens, which he didn't know. Apart from seeing some of them with the Court — entertainment at gatherings — he's never actually seen any of them work. Though, he has been ordered up to these rooms before, when Court members have wanted him. Never at the same time as one of them though.

The doors in this corner are labeled with black numbers, and the boy, after glancing back along the corridor, opens the one marked five. When he follows, he closes the door behind them with a soft click and then looks up, taking a look around the room. It's similar to the rooms that he's been brought to before, but with more things in it. There's the bed, the couch, the thick carpet and darker colors, which are all familiar. The other furniture in here of odder shapes, the obvious built-in restraints, and the chests pressed flat against the wall with small labels on them he can't quite read from here — even with his enhanced eyes — are all different.

The boy goes to the bed, climbing up on to it with easy grace and then rolling over on his back to look back at him and smile.

"No cameras," the boy says, as he slowly approaches. "Court likes to play, but doesn't like anyone seeing them playing. Total free zone."

He looks around, checking corners as he moves, but as far as he can see — and he's been trained and tested a thousand times on this — there's no surveillance. Something might be hidden, but he actually finds it easy to believe that the Court would skip surveillance on rooms like these. Catching their servants disobeying would be less important than making sure there wasn't any video of them doing things they'd be otherwise embarrassed about.

It feels a little odd to climb up on the bed, but he ends up turning to press his back against the headboard so he can see both the exit, and the door on the other side of the room that he assumes has to be a bathroom, as it has been in the rooms he has been. He tenses up just a bit when the boy rolls over, brushing up against his leg and looking up at him, arms crossed under his chin.

"Mine's Jason," the boy offers, with a small smile. "They don't really call me anything now, but that's the name I give when anyone asks. Feels good to have it again, you know?"

He shifts a bit. "Jason?" he echoes, and the boy smiles wider and then turns, rolling one more time and pressing right back against his leg. He stares as the boy — Jason? — arches a tiny bit, head pressing back against his thigh.

"Feels good to hear it," comes the murmured words.

After a moment, he follows a little urging in the pit of his stomach and raises his hand, reaching down to touch that head of black hair. Jason pushes up into it, and he increases the pressure, slides his fingers down through Jason's hair and along the top of his head. The sigh he gets, and the way Jason tilts his head into the bed and offers the back of his skull and neck, stirs the same kind of strange fascination he felt before.

"What about you?" Jason asks after a few minutes, words soft. "What was your name?"

He hesitates for a second, sweeps his gaze over the room one more time for any kind of camera, and then whispers, "Richard. I—” He swallows. "Dick."

Jason looks up, meeting his eyes. "Dick?"

His eyes slide shut for a moment; at how strange it sounds, at how good. There's a feeling that settles low in his chest, a warmth that washes down his back and leaves him feeling… light. It doesn't make sense, but hearing that name…

"Feels good, doesn't it?"

He opens his eyes, finds the easy warmth of Jason's smile, and gives a slow nod.

Jason pushes up, shifting higher on the bed — he watches, but wariness is easing under the fascination and the little curl of warmth — and leaning up against the headboard next to him.

"See?" Jason says, legs curled up. "It's nice, isn't it, Dick?"

"Yes," he answers, head turned to meet that blue gaze. "Jason."

Another smile, and then Jason shifts a little more forward, leans in—

His hands come up, catching Jason's arms and holding tight, holding him back. Those blue eyes flicker wide, and then Jason is pulling back about an inch, looking a little bit startled.

"Sorry, I— I didn't really—” Jason breathes out, slow, and eases against his grip. "It's automatic, sorry. It's how they trained me to be; how I was trained to show gratitude. I'll try not to." A little, crooked smile, and then Jason, ignoring the hands on his arms, leans against the headboard. "You get that, right? Things that are automatic?"

He carefully lets go, chewing over his words for a minute before he answers, "I understand."

He does. He has his own automatic ticks that were programmed and trained into him, like how a tap to his shoulder can make him drop to his knees or a hand digging nails into the back of his neck makes him instantly pliable and submissive. There are lots of other, smaller things, but those are the ones meant to control him. Hardly anyone actually uses them on him anymore, but he's sure they still work. How could they not?

Jason's gaze is lowered, somewhere down near his other side, when a small laugh twists those lips. "You know, all this time…” Those eyes rise, meeting his gaze. "I've always wondered what other people feel, when they take my time. I mean, I know all the physical reasons, obviously, but what do they feel? What's it—” A small swallow, and then Jason's voice lowers when he continues, "What does it feel like when you actually want it? Like… Like when it's actually based in…” Jason's gaze flickers down, then back up. "Attraction?"

He stills, trying to read more in Jason's expression but not quite getting it. There's a little bit of uncertainty in those blue eyes, but also a curiosity, and something darker that he doesn't quite recognize.

"I don't know," he answers honestly.

Jason watches him for a couple of seconds, and then swallows again. "I— I know this is bizarre and probably crossing all kinds of lines but… I want to kiss you, and that's never happened to me before, Dick. I just— I just want to know what it feels like." A pause, as he stares, and then Jason asks, soft and almost shaky, "Can I?"

He feels frozen in a way he hasn't in a long time, almost caught like when Sir would trap him between two terrible options and expect him to pick the one that demonstrated more loyalty. But there's also that little curl of warmth in his stomach, that little fascination in the back of his head urging him to just try.

Jason's expression falls, and then it gets hidden behind a smile and a very fake warmth. "Sorry," Jason repeats, drawing back, "I didn't mean to push that on you; I didn't—”

"Yes," he says, short and simple, and Jason stalls. When there's no movement, he gathers whatever words are left in him and manages, "Yes, Jason. You can."

A crooked smile, and then Jason gives a soft laugh and eases again. "Really?"

He nods, and Jason shifts a bit closer, one hand rising to very gently touch his cheek. He stays still, unsure of what to do, and the smile slips from Jason's face. Not that Jason's expression slips to anything bad, but just to a sort of focused uncertainty, which he understands. He's pretty sure he's got the same expression, underneath the mask that's been trained into him.

"Alright," Jason breathes, "then just… just let me, okay? Just follow my lead."

Jason leans in, slowly, and he watches up until Jason's eyes slide closed, fingers stroking along his cheek as he closes his own. There's a small puff of hot air across his jaw, and then the gentle press of lips to his. It's a completely new sensation — Court members never take their masks off around him — and something in his chest warms and flutters until he finds himself reaching up with one hand and duplicating the touch of fingers on his cheek. Jason's skin is soft underneath his fingertips, and he gets a quiet, pleased noise that blows more air against his jaw before Jason pulls back about an inch.

"That's…” Jason's lips brush his as they move, parting to let the other teenager whisper, "That's so different. Can— Can I? Again?"

Instead of answering, he shifts forward that half an inch and does it himself. It's different that way, when it's under his control. It's strange to have something be — almost — on his terms, but he kind of likes it. He likes the way Jason's lips part in a soft gasp, and the way that Jason's other hand touches his side, warm even through the fabric of his shirt. He especially likes the way that Jason presses back against him, still gentle but definitely participating.

He runs his fingers back from Jason's cheek and into his hair, remembering the way that Jason's sighed and relaxed every time he has. This is no exception; when he strokes his fingers back through Jason's hair he gets another pleased sound, and Jason's whole body moves closer, stretching out to press along the length of his. He can’t quite help turning a little bit so he’s angled towards Jason, and then raising his other hand until he can mimic Jason and lightly touch the black cloth covering his side. He spreads his fingers out, enjoying the heat but also idly feeling the muscle underneath the layer of cloth. Not his level, but smooth and firm; good definition.

Jason shivers, pushing forward against him in a small rocking motion, giving a very soft groan and then twisting his head a bit away, making a second sound into his jaw instead. His breath catches just a little bit, and he very carefully flexes the fingers he has spread through Jason’s hair, holding him.

“Dick,” Jason breathes, voice lower now, a little rougher. “Can we— Can we do more? You can say no, I swear, I just— God, I just want to know what it feels like.”

He swallows, trying to really consider what that might mean, what might happen. But there’s that distracting warmth in his gut, building underneath his skin, and Jason’s mouth is warm against his jaw, and any thoughts about consequences or what might happen if anyone finds them just slips right out of his head. He slides his hand around Jason’s side, pressing against his low back and shifting his head to meet the soft press of Jason’s mouth again.

“So do I,” he admits, keeping his voice quiet between them. “I’d like that, Jason.”

Jason gives another of those little groans, head turning away and lowering, and he doesn’t understand why until Jason’s mouth is on his throat, hot and wet. He tilts his head back, exhaling a breath of pleasure and curling the fingers on Jason’s back to grip a handful of his shirt.

Which is when the door opens, and he whips his head around to look, tensing up in an automatic instinct to fight. At least until the two figures moving inside register in his mind, and then he freezes for an entirely different reason. The two heads of the Court’s servants. His Sir, and what he has to assume is Jason’s Sir as well, or at least what he knows as the head of the Court’s pleasure side of the business.

Jason shifts, still loose and relaxed, and breathes a nearly inaudible, “Sorry,” into his ear.

Sir looks angry, and past that he barely even registers the fact that Jason’s Sir looks smug and pleased. Both of them approach, and he can practically already feel the whip on his back when Jason pushes away from him, slipping out of his grasp and sliding down the bed. Jason gets to his feet, moving forward with that smooth, graceful stride until he’s beside the two Sirs, gaze lowered and with absolutely none of that easy warmth from before.

“As ordered, Sir,” Jason offers, bowing his head.

Jason’s Sir reaches forward, slipping fingers beneath Jason’s chin to raise it, smiling the entire time. “That was very good, Five. Well done on your graduation.”

Jason’s mouth flickers into something like a smile, but the look in his eyes stays flat and hard, calculating in that same way he got a glimpse of earlier. “Thank you, Sir. I’d be happy to show my appreciation for your kindness.”

“Talon!” barks his Sir, and he snaps his gaze back and tries to stay absolutely still. “Here. Now.”

He gets off the bed as fast as he can manage without falling, moving to his Sir and dropping to his knees in front of him without prompting. This was definitely a test, he’s just still figuring out which one of them it was meant to test, or if it was both. Jason’s goal seems to have been to get him to agree to something like sex, and he… Well, clearly he failed whatever exactly his parameters were on this test.

He expects the backhand — hard enough to split his bottom lip and knock him to the side — and catches himself on his fingertips, accepting the reprimand without fight. There’s worse to come; he’s sure.

“Oh, it’s not really his fault,” Jason’s Sir says, with a small laugh. “He’s just a weapon; you never did teach him how to resist any of my more elegant tools.”

He keeps his eyes and head down, and doesn’t move from where he’s been hit.

“I don’t care if he fucks your boy,” his Sir spits. “I care that he let himself get talked into going behind my back. This stupid test of yours could have been done the second he came here.”

“On your end. My boy had more to do, and did it quite well. Maybe I should help you train your Talons. After all, if it’s their discipline you’re worried about, my boy clearly got the better of yours this time.”

“Don’t. Talon, come.”

He gets back to his feet as his Sir turns on a heel and stalks out, glancing back at Jason as he follows. Those blue-green eyes meet his for a fraction of a second, lower, and then flicker back up, holding his gaze right up until he slips through the door and it has to break.

He follows Sir back down into concrete, ignores the feeling of blood sliding down his chin, and braces for whatever punishment he’s due.


	5. Chapter 5

He almost feels ashamed. It's one thing to twist himself to suit the Court's desires, to spin and play anything he's ordered to, but there's something about doing it to _Talon_ that doesn't feel right. Maybe it's the careful, gentle touches of a trained killer's hands, or the way that Talon just _melts_ when he says the man's name.

Dick. Of _all_ things.

There's no blame in Talon's expression though, and no real shock. There's surprise, but once that's faded it just leaves behind the enforced stillness of someone trying to not make their situation any worse. He's done that too, when he's been caught doing things he shouldn't have. Stayed utterly still until commanded to move, because he knew that any sort of pleading, or explanation, or attempt to con his way out of it would only make everything worse. Talon would know that he couldn't possibly fool the person who trained him.

So once he's released from his master's 'congratulations,' and he's clean again, he slips down to the medical wing of the utility corridors; down in the maze where Talon lives. It doesn't take much to find the one grumbling man, leaning down over an examination table with a very still form with pale skin and black hair on it. He's no stranger to the sight or smell of blood, but Talon's back is a mess of bloody lines and forming bruises, and it looks like he's been beaten within an inch of his life. That can't actually be true, because Talon's master is smarter than to kill the Court's attack dog without a ready replacement and a good reason, but it looks like it.

He knocks on the door frame, easing his body into a relaxed curve as he leans against it. The nurse looks up, and there's an obvious flicker of surprise.

"What are you doing down here?" the man demands, eyes narrowing. He doesn't for one second miss the way that gaze slides down his body though, and he makes sure when he straightens up he stays fluid and loose, moving towards the nurse with a sway to his hips that's automatic.

"Came down for supplies," he says, lowering his voice to be as soft and welcoming as his body language. "Running a little low and I like a little—” he gives a wink, a crooked smirk "—practice in my off hours." The nurse gapes a bit, and he finishes circling the table and steps right up beside the man, making sure their arms brush. "What about you, Doctor? What kinda _fun_ are you getting up to?"

A huff of breath, and a tiny scowl from the man that's aimed down at Talon's back. "I'm _not_. I was about to leave when _this_ got dumped in my lap. Needs stitches, cleaning… Ruined my night."

"I can make it better," he offers easily. "You go; I'll stay behind and clean all this up for you." The nurse hesitates, and he shifts a bit closer, turns his head so his mouth is nearly brushing the man's shoulder. "Maybe later you can pay me a visit?" he breathes, looking up through his eyelashes with a _smile_ even his master appreciates. "Show me how much you—” he rolls his hips the smallest bit, just enough to catch the nurse's eye "—appreciate my help."

Hook, line, and sinker. The nurse is flushed, breathing a little harder, and when he echoes, "Appreciate your help?" his voice is deeper and darker.

He gives a pleased hum of sound, tilting his head back enough to arch his throat a little bit. "Cleaning up the mess," he prods. "I mean, usually I enjoy _making_ the messes but, well…” He lets his tongue slide out to wet his lips, watches the nurse's pupils expand. "Cleaning's not bad either. I've heard I'm good at it."

"I—”

It's tempting to watch the man just stutter and fall apart, but he has a goal. So he leans up, tilting his head back like it's for a kiss, and then stops. _Inches_ away when he murmurs, "I'll clean up here. Later, come find me. I'm always up for some _appreciation_."

"Al-Alright," the nurse answers, after a sharp breath. "I— Okay. You— You know how?"

A slightly more wicked smile. "I know all _kinds_ of things. Go get some rest, Doctor. You'll need it."

He can hear the nurse's breath catch, and he stays still as the man steps away, pupils blown wide in arousal and mouth parted. The nurse's walk out of the room is more of a stagger than any actual movement, and he resists the urge to snort — or drop his act — until the man's out the door and he can't hear footsteps anymore. Then he lets it slide away, and turns his attention down to Talon.

He raises his gaze from the mess of Talon's back to his head, and finds it turned partially towards him, one yellow eye hazed with pain, but watching him steadily. He stills, returning the gaze and shutting away that thread of wariness in his chest that says that this might have been a bad idea. Next to Talon, his life is worthless, and _he's_ the one that's the cause of Talon's current pain. If it were him, he might be angry enough to try for revenge.

"You alright?" he asks, watching and trying to figure out exactly what Talon might do, and what he should behave like to get the best ending possible. It's hard to read mood off of that single eye, and without any real body language to cue off of.

Talon just watches him, and he takes a guess and aims for uncomfortable, shifting back a bit and lowering his gaze.

"I— It was just a test. I didn't want to—”

"Don't," Talon says, and he snaps his gaze back up. That single eye is a little clearer, and a little narrowed. "Don't play me."

With anyone else he'd laugh it off, or slip to some different persona and pretend that _that's_ the real one, but with the way Talon is looking at him…

He straightens up a bit, letting all that fake expression fall away from his face and his body. He works his jaw — it always feels a little strange to not have _some_ mask or another on — and then concedes, "Alright; no playing. Truth?" Talon gives a tiny nod, so he pauses and considers his words. "I wouldn't have chosen to get you punished," is what he says. "Sorry it turned out that way. Are you going to be looking to get back at me?"

Talon shifts, pain sliding over that face as the killer braces both hands and pushes up. He takes half a step back to not be in the way if Talon falls, but doesn't offer the suggestion on the tip of his tongue that anyone with a back like that probably shouldn't move that much. He knows nothing about Talon's limits other than that they're higher than his; he's sure that Talon will know what he can or can't do.

When Talon is sitting, shoulders drawn artificially straight and expression tight with pain, is when the trained killer says, voice soft, "We're servants of the Court." A pause, where Talon meets his gaze with those unnatural, _fascinating_ yellow-orange eyes, and then he finishes, "Above all else."

He feels his mouth curl in a tiny smirk. "Above all else," he repeats. "Good. So then, you're _not_ going to come after me with something sharp?"

Talon's head tilts just a bit, and there's a tiny ghost of his smirk, there and gone in a flash. "Not unless I'm ordered to."

"Fair," he concedes. "I was going to patch you up; that alright?"

“That another order?”

“No. My idea.”

Talon studies him, and then gives a slow nod, shifting to bare some of his back. He takes the permission for what it is, turning to take a look at the mess of Talon’s back, most of it coated in a thin layer of blood; more now that Talon’s moved and opened some back up. The nurse had already gotten as far as pulling out the supplies, but was only just starting to treat the wounds. He reaches for some of the wipes to start, trying to clean up Talon’s back so he can get a better grasp on what he’ll need to fix this.

“That’s a hell of a whipping for a little sex,” he comments, keeping the touch of his hands gentle and careful.

Talon’s quiet for a few moments, and then breathes, “Sex had nothing to do with it. I didn’t specifically know I was allowed, but I’d never been told not to either.” Talon pauses, and then turns his head to look back in his direction to say, “I let you talk me into hiding in your room and let you use a name that’s not mine anymore. I shouldn’t have. That’s what the whipping was for.”

He considers lying, but ultimately decides that there’s not much point. “I know,” he admits, looking up to meet Talon’s gaze. “I was ordered to convince you to have sex with me, officially, but unofficially my master told me that I was supposed to get you punished for something too. Competition between them, you know?”

“I know.” Another few moments of silence, where he sets down the wipes and reaches for the pre-strung needle and thread, and then Talon asks, “Is your name really Jason?”

“It was,” he answers. “I don’t really have a name — my master just calls me boy, or Five, after my room number — but I wasn’t lying. When someone asks me for one I give them Jason. It does feel good to hear it again.”

“The cameras? There was something in there.”

“And they took it right back out.” He gets halfway through an automatic smile before making it drop back off of his face. “The best lies are the truth,” he says instead. “I mold myself into what people want. That’s my training.”

Talon doesn’t even twitch when he starts sewing up the deepest of the gashes in his back, just watches in silence and with a careful, studying edge. “You’re good at it,” Talon murmurs, when he gets to the end of that wound and ties it off, turning back to get more thread so he can work on the other thing deep enough to need stitches. “I didn’t recognize it.”

This time he does snort, before he looks up. “No offense, but I’ve worked on Court members a lot harder than you. You’re not all that hard to read, you were never taught to spot my kind of deception, and you’re almost hardwired to be subservient and do what other people want. You’re really not suited to resist me.”

He gets another flicker of a smirk, and Talon's head dips just a bit. "Fair." Another long pause, where Talon's gaze slides out across the room and he refocuses on his work. He finishes up the second row of stitches, sets the needle aside in the little metal tray all the supplies are on, and is reaching for supplies to clean the shallower stripes when Talon speaks. "Tonight; your master said 'graduation'?"

He hums confirmation, leaning in to start. "Yeah. Passed with flying colors. You probably haven't heard it yet, considering how angry _your_ master was, but I'm your new partner." He meets the sharp flick of Talon's gaze back towards him, pausing for just a moment before he gets back to work. "That's what I was told, anyway. Whenever you need someone to socialize, or draw a target out, I'm first choice. Assuming some Court member isn't taking up my time."

Talon just watches him, but he can definitely see the sharp, mistrustful edge to the killer's gaze.

He considers for a moment, rolls one shoulder in a small shrug, and then agrees, "Fair. I'm sure once your master has cooled off he'll brief you, or one of the Court will. But so you know, on my end, that means that whatever you want, I'm yours. A little first aid, sex, spars, whatever. Unless a Court member requests me."

He's studied for another second, and then Talon gives a small nod, gaze flicking down for a moment, and murmurs, "A servant above all else."

He echoes the nod. "Any other time, I'm just a call away."

Talon's gaze slips away again, and the room lapses back into silence. It's a bit strange, but it actually feels almost peaceful, or at the very least it doesn't feel dangerous. He's used to silences meaning he's being judged, or that whatever master he's serving is angry, but on Talon it seems like a much more natural state. If he's reading things right, he'd guess that Talon is more comfortable being silent too, unless he has something specific in mind to say or ask. It's a nice change of pace.

He's wrapping bandages around Talon's torso by the time Talon speaks again, breaking the silence with a quiet, "I could use some assistance getting back to my room."

It takes him a second to process the words, but then he gives a small, crooked smirk and dips his head a bit. "You got it, Talon.”

* * *

He's eighteen when his life takes a sharp turn off the tracks he thought it was on.

His master is studying him, arms crossed, at one of his monthly-or-so examinations, and the displeased look sets him on edge right away. He doesn't show it, but he _tries_ to think if he's failed in some way in keeping up his looks. He can't think of anything, which only makes it worse because that means he must have done something wrong _and_ he can't remember what it is, which is a good start towards being punished.

He waits, holding his tongue as his master circles him, keeping himself straight and breathing in short, even breaths to minimize the movement of his chest and back. He submits wordlessly to the proprietary touches and grabs of various bits of him, too used to this kind of examination for it to even phase him. Except for how his master still looks unhappy even when it's done, and after there's been that little flick of a hand that's silent permission for him to lower his arms and relax a bit.

When nothing more comes, and that expression stays — he's still being studied — he asks, "Have I done something wrong, Sir?"

His master's gaze rises, meets his, and then there's an irritated sigh and a sharp gesture that encompasses his entire body. "You're too big," his master snaps. "Damn it, you're too _big_."

He stays still, completely at a loss for how to respond to that except with some kind of double entendre and he is _not_ supposed to play his own master. He's not totally sure what that criticism is aimed at either, which makes things a whole lot worse. Is his master talking about his weight, his muscle, his build, his cock, or something else he's completely missing? He's done his best to make sure that he stays lean and in shape, with just enough muscle to be defined without making him look dangerous; as he was taught. Did he mess up?

His master gives another sharp exhale of breath, eyes narrowed. "Too late now. I'll have to talk to the Grandmaster to decide what to do with you; you can't stay here much longer."

He freezes up, watching his master turn and move to the desk that fills most of the office's space; what isn't left over to test flexibility, poses, and other assorted things. He nearly has to physically bite down on his tongue to keep from saying anything, and to just watch as his master sits down and starts making notes on a paper he can't read from where he's standing. He hasn't been dismissed, or given new orders, so even though there's something like fear crawling along his spine he makes himself _stay still_.

Eventually his master drops the pen and gets back up, circling around the desk to stand in front of him, reaching forward to take a handful of his hair. He eases into the pull, letting it tilt his head and bare the side of his neck.

"Shame," his master says, other hand coming forward to trace down the length of his throat. "You were one of the better tools I ever created; I'm going to miss having you in my service."

Faced with the unnerving fear starting to build in his gut, he loosens his mental grip on his tongue and cautiously asks, "Sir? Whatever I've done; can I fix it?"

"Not unless you can travel back in time and starve yourself to stunt your own growth," his master says, with sharp sarcasm and a bite of resignation. "Our patrons in general prefer average to shorter height, and a slender build. You're too tall and too big, and I doubt you're even fully grown yet. By the time you are, only a minority will still want you without having to be conned into it. If you aren't serving the Court, you don't deserve a spot in my stable."

He wordlessly lets his head be turned back to center, only half-aware as his master lets go and starts to circle him again, hands grabbing at his arms, legs, back, shoulders. "You have a decent amount of assassination training," his master muses, "it might be possible to turn you into a Talon."

His breath catches at __that idea, because he knows _exactly_ how Talons work. They're trained, they face the one before them, and they either die or take the mantle.

"Don't like that idea, boy? Answer."

He swallows, pushes away the fear and the uncertainty and makes himself meet his master's gaze. "Talon would _slaughter_ me, Sir. I can't compete with him in a straight fight; training me as a Talon is a drawn out death sentence."

His master's mouth curls into a smirk. "Relax. _If_ the Grandmaster wants to make you a Talon, I'll make sure that you don't compete for the title. I don't want you dead, boy. I've put too much time and effort into you to see you sacrificed like some worthless piece of garbage." A pause, a considering sweep of his master's gaze down his body. "You're already working as Talon's assistant; that seems to be working well, maybe it can stay that way. I'll pitch the idea of having you as a secondary Talon to the Grandmaster. None of that harsher training of course, no enhanced eyes…”

The smirk turns into a sharp smile, and his master straightens a touch. "Yes, that will work well. I know there are quite a few Court members who would want the thrill of bedding a Talon, without all of that troublesome lack of reaction. After all, it would be a shame to have all your training go to waste." A snap of fingers, and his master heads back towards the desk. "You're dismissed, boy. Free time."

He moves on automatic, collecting his discarded robe from near the door and slipping into it as he leaves. Only once he’s outside and he’s closed the door behind him does he have to stop for a moment and just _breathe_. He leans against the wall and tries not to let the coiled ball of fear shoved deep in his stomach gnaw its way any further through him. He needs to be somewhere safe, he needs to—

The path he moves on is as automatic as following his master’s orders, he’s taken it so many times over the last couple of years. He follows corridors down until they turn to concrete, then winds deeper until he’s slipping past the archway that serves as the door to Talon’s room; weapons don’t get privacy.

Talon is on the floor, stretched up in an arch that matches his own flexibility, but eases out of it the instant he enters, rolling and standing with a liquid kind of grace. Yellow eyes rise to meet his gaze, and then Talon’s expression slips into a faint frown, which tells him that whatever’s on his face is definitely _not_ one of the masks he’s learned. He’s showing too much, he—

“Jason?” Talon asks, with a note to his voice that’s _concern_ and he almost chokes.

He steps forward, Talon meets him, and then he’s nearly falling forward, wrapping his arms around Talon’s chest and burying his head into a hard shoulder, clinging as he tries so, _so_ hard not to fall apart any worse than this. Talon is stiff underneath him for a moment, and then careful hands touch his sides, sliding up in exploratory circles as if making sure that he’s still in one piece.

“You’re shaking,” Talon murmurs. “Are you hurt?” He can’t quite get his voice under control enough to answer, and apparently that worries Talon because a few moments later he’s getting pulled over towards the bed, strong hands manhandling him down onto it and pulling open the tie on his robe, all but yanking it apart.

Talon pulls away from him, pushing the robe off his shoulders and he almost chokes out some kind of joke about crossed boundaries before he realizes that Talon’s actually checking him for injuries. He shivers, rebuttal dying on his tongue, and just lets it happen. He lets Talon slide hands across his skin, checking him from head to toe for wounds that aren’t there, staring blindly at the ceiling and then the wall, when Talon pulls him up to check his back too.

“No,” he finally manages, when Talon’s hands start to check places they’ve already been. “I— I’m not hurt. I’m okay; I’m not hurt.”

Both of Talon’s hands rise, cupping his jaw and forcing him to turn his head and meet the gaze of those yellow-orange eyes. He’s studied for a moment, and then Talon says, “Both those things can’t be true.”

He doesn’t have any answer for that, so he just stares helplessly back before jerking his head in a small shake.

Talon lets go of his head, and he almost laughs when those precise, deadly hands pull his robe back together and tie it shut, before pushing him down onto the bed. More jokes hover at the tip of his tongue, but before he can debate saying them Talon is lying down beside him, pulling him close. Strong arms circle his back, a hand sliding into his hair and pushing his head down beneath Talon’s chin, against the muscle of his chest.

It’s not the first time that he’s just laid in a bed with Talon and enjoyed the company of someone who didn’t _want_ something from him. It’s a kind of bliss to be close to someone whose touches don’t have intention behind them, and who he doesn’t have to act for, and Talon seems to get something very similar out of it, so they’ve done this more than a few times over the years they’ve been partners. But Talon’s never held him like this, never so deliberate or so close, and never with the clear goal being comfort.

He shivers again, pressing his forehead into the shirt covering Talon’s chest and raising both hands to grip loose fistfuls of it too. With everything around him so still, so solid, he realizes that he really is shaking a little bit. More than enough for someone like Talon to notice, even if it might not have been visible to a person with normal eyesight.

“Did something happen?” Talon asks, the hand in his hair loosening to carefully stroke his scalp.

He presses a little closer, squeezing his eyes shut and tightening his grip on Talon's shirt. "I'm too tall," he murmurs. "I— What they trained me for, all of this… I'm too _tall_." Talon stays silent, fingers stroking through his hair. "My master is going to talk to the Grandmaster about what— what to __do with me. He wants to make me some kind of secondary Talon, so my training doesn't go to waste."

The hand on his low back pulls him another fraction in, and he feels Talon exhale over the top of his head. "You're losing your place," is the summary that Talon murmurs. "You're scared."

He nods. "Everything's going to change," he whispers, "and I didn't do _anything_ to deserve it. I— I don't know my role anymore."

The hand in his hair stills, and then shifts to cup the back of his skull, thumb pushing firm pressure in near the base of it. "I do," Talon answers. "It doesn't matter what your duties are; that doesn't change."

He freezes up for a second, but the moment after he's relaxing and pressing his head into Talon's chest, exhaling hard and feeling a little bit of that steadiness come back to his bones. "Above all else," he breathes, mostly to himself, then raises his voice to tell Talon, "My master wants to have me avoid the scars, and skip the eyes; he thinks that there are Court members who would want a Talon."

"He's right," Talon says, after a couple seconds of silence. "Some have demanded my company; they never seem entirely satisfied."

"It's not your training," he points out.

Talon doesn't answer, which is really agreement all by itself. He pushes himself into something like meditation, focusing on steadying his breathing and easing the last traces of the faint trembling from his limbs. He succeeds at both, managing to find comfort and security in the simple agreement that he and Talon came to years ago. He serves the Court, and that's all there is to it. Whatever he's ordered, whatever role he's given, whatever name he's called by, his only duty is to obey. Just because he won't be 'Five' anymore, doesn't mean he won't have a place.

Eventually, Talon shifts a tiny bit and asks, "Do you need to be anywhere?"

He shakes his head, and echoes it with a soft, "No."

Talon's hand slides up his back, firm and strong against him, and Talon says, "Stay. Until one of us does."

He almost teases, almost smiles and rolls his body and makes a comment about it taking long enough, but then his mind catches up with his impulses and he shuts all that down. He shifts instead, letting go of Talon's shirt to wrap his arm around that muscled, trim waist, and loosely curl his fingers over Talon's back instead.

"Okay."


	6. Chapter 6

He's fifteen when his parents are killed. It's an attack on their cruise ship from one of those costumed freaks that Gotham seems to attract; a hostage situation that turns deadly all too fast. Poison, and by the time the Batman has come through and ended the situation it's too late for more than a few people on board to be treated in time. His parents aren't part of those few.

Before they've even passed away — when he's trapped in a hospital waiting room watching the rush of activity with a peculiar numbness — there are Court members circling him. A couple had relatives on board, and are there for their own news, but most of the visitors are there for their version of 'support.' He hasn't been naive for a long time, and he recognizes the circling and the condolences for exactly what they are.

If — _when_ , a cold part of his mind says — his parents die, he will be the sole member of his family left. He’ll be the heir to Drake Industries and all the wealth and power that comes with it, and he will be the sole voice for where all of that power is directed in the Court. He's done his best to make sure that people don't see him as too much of a threat, ever since he realized how unnerved regular people tended to be with his genius, but he can only hide so much. He's known for asking questions, he's known for debating, and ever since he was a child he's been unofficially underneath the Grandmaster's wing. He knows more about the Court than most of the people who've been in it decades longer.

Playing nice now is their way of trying to make friends with him, to try and get him to favor them later on by remembering that they bothered to stop by and offer some meaningless words. Really, the fact that they think that will work just makes him less likely to think of helping them first; he doubts that any of these people could care less about his parents, or him.

When the news comes it's not unexpected. The lingering Court members flit about him like strangely sympathetic birds, whispering how awful that is, how terrible to have such a young boy left alone. He takes a breath, looks the doctor in the eye, and asks what needs to be done.

The next few days are a mess of lawyers and board members, and then a funeral filled with people who style themselves 'friends,' a fair number of which are careful to be caught on the cameras following everyone as close as possible. The whole thing feels strange and fake, and rationally he's aware that those really are his parents being buried, he _knows_ that, but it feels like some sort of odd, hazed dream.

It shocks him how much he _hates_ the way everyone slips around him, pitying eyes and sympathetic voices, like he'll break if the wrong word reaches his ears.

It isn't until he's home again, and _anger_ overwhelms the numbness, that he realizes it's because of how _underestimated_ he feels. He's a _genius_ , he's a fairly high member of the Court, he's top of all his classes and a good athlete on top of that, and they think he's just going to shatter into pieces. He cared for his parents, of course he did, but it wasn't like they were in much of his life to begin with. They were more present once he was in the Court, but it wasn't like they were the kind of doting parents that took him along on adventures or clearly, obviously, loved him above all else. They were never that kind of family.

Having them dead is sudden and shocking, and he's not unaffected, but he's stronger than any of the vultures around him are giving him credit for and he finds that he despises being treated as less.

That night, he gets a hold of their family's primary lawyer, and he asks all the questions he wants to with no regard for how it sounds. Exactly what's going to happen, how the procedure for him taking control of Drake Industries will work, what he needs to do to legally become recognized as an adult, and so on. He sleeps on all those thoughts, and in the morning he calls back for the answers.

He starts it all as soon as he can.

By the time the Court has its next gathering, he's in control of Drake Industries, legally emancipated, and in full control of all of his estates and his parents' fortune. Money and influence can make anything move quickly, in his experience.

Secure in all that power, he finds it much easier to play the still grieving boy, slightly overwhelmed and certainly no threat to anyone. Of _course_ not. The Grandmaster is the only one who doesn't seem fooled, but then the Grandmaster knows him better than anyone else in the Court. He never expected for the Grandmaster to believe that he is what he's playing as to keep everyone else off guard, after all, the Grandmaster is the one that taught him how to play this game.

He trades small talk, accepts sympathies, lets everyone console him as they try to gain his loyalty, even lets some of them — the ones he's not concerned with keeping 'friendly' — let them think that they actually have. After all, at some point he's going to have to break free of this 'poor boy' stereotype, and that will be easier if he can do it divisively.

Eventually, when things have started to calm down for the night and people are starting to leave, the Grandmaster approaches him and clasps his shoulder, leaning down to speak in his ear.

"Timothy, come with me."

Curious, and not about to disobey a direct order from their leader, he follows the Grandmaster farther into the Court's underground base. His heart leaps when he's guided to a smaller room, the main focus of which is a large table with eight other people, which he recognizes despite never having been here. This is the inner circle of the Court, the men and women actually responsible for making the decisions that keep all of them in power, and manipulate the city around them. This is the _real_ power of the Court, not just the crowd outside that enjoy the benefits. And there's an open seat on the other side of the table.

The Grandmaster turns back to him, and he recognizes the smile in the older man's voice. "Timothy, due to your recently gained control over Drake Industries, and how very well you've handled all proceedings regarding it, as well as how promising you've proven to be so far, we've voted to include you in the Inner Court. I imagine you know what we do?"

He nods, and answers, "Yes, sir. I do."

Even behind the mask, he can tell that the Grandmaster approves that he knows more than he — by all rights — should. "Good. Do you accept our offer, Timothy?"

He lets himself take a glance around the table at the other members there — he recognizes them all, knows their names and jobs — and then meets the Grandmaster's gaze and gives a small smile behind his own mask. "Gladly, sir."

"Excellent. Take a seat then; let's get started."

The Grandmaster takes the seat at the head of the table, and he takes a shallow breath and then heads the opposite direction towards the other empty chair. It's fairly far down in the length of the chair, and it's easy to see that it's a status decision to have him seated there. Showing that he's new, young, and probably won't have anyone's respect here until he's earned it. The Grandmaster may know most of what he's capable of, but the others — he knows — don't. They've bought his grief act completely.

He settles in, and as soon as he has conversation starts up. Light, for a moment, before the Grandmaster starts a discussion up about the docks and the mob down there run by the Falcone family. Even though it's fairly boring, he pays close attention to the minutia and the details of what they're talking about. It's a debate on how much of the smuggling they should let through, and how much they should make sure the police or Batman are aware of, to shut down. After all, the mob is apparently a necessary part of how Gotham's underground runs, but they can't be allowed to grow bigger than can be controlled.

Despite how technically boring it is, he finds himself fascinated. It's more detail about the city than he's ever known before, more little bits of how things are run than he understood, and he's always _loved_ new information. He stays quiet, just listening and absorbing, learning exactly how this inner Court works and what they do.

The dock matters get settled easily, and then things move onto various smaller conversations. He doesn't know enough about any of it to put an opinion in, so he just continues to listen. There are various negotiations about research, trades between larger companies, support for elected officials or lack thereof, and then a brief — but ultimately discarded — question of if they want to do anything about Batman. Discarded because it's decided that he's useful enough for now, and trying to eliminate him would be quite an endeavor, which no one seems to want to start without some assurance they'd win. It makes more than enough sense to him.

But there's a strange theme to everything that he starts to notice. As they talk about companies, elected officials, and various other bits of business, he realizes that everything is aimed towards slowing things down. Stopping any officials with ideas about 'change,' and supporting the ones who will uphold the status quo. The same methodology is applied to companies, slowing growth and making sure everything advances equally, no one company ahead of the others or advancing too quickly. It's… odd. He'd think that the Court would want to promote growth, to fix Gotham's lower, crime-riddled districts, to make as much progress as possible in all the fields they have a hand in. But… they're not.

He wishes it came as more of a surprise when, after a solid forty-five minutes of other business, the Grandmaster's attention turns to him, as does the rest of the table. Not exclusively, almost _derisively_ , in fact, but he's spoken to at least.

"Timothy, there are a couple projects in Drake Industries tech division that we'd like shut down; you can handle that, can't you?"

"Absolutely," he says, even as something in him recoils from the idea of shutting _down_ progress. He's glad none of them can see his face as he asks, "Which ones?"

The Grandmaster's voice is calm and just slightly amused, as usual. "You have two separate projects to do with increasing the efficiency of water filtration. Shut them down. Bury them."

He pauses, and then — not quite able to keep his mouth shut — says, "Those projects will make the water for hundreds of people in lower Gotham safe again. They're revolutionary ideas for the entire water filtration system of the city." Shutting them _down_ makes no sense; it would improve the living quality of hundreds of people and be very profitable, why would he _stop_ it?

One of the other people, towards the head of the table, speaks. "It would also launch Drake Industries ahead of its competitors from the profit of the city contracting those systems. Not exactly fair to the rest of us, is it?" The man's voice is condescending and explanatory, like he's just a _kid_ who doesn't understand any of this.

He _understands_ , he just disagrees. He doesn't understand _why_ the Court would want to strangle progress like this. He didn't know that was what the Court did; he thought they worked to make Gotham the best it could be, of course with a priority on control and profit, but not to the exclusion of everything else. Not like what he's hearing.

There's a moment of silence, where he bites his tongue not to snap at the condescending man. He'd like to disagree, he'd like to debate this, but it's an order worded as a request from the Grandmaster himself, and as favored as he might be at the moment, he's not irreplaceable. He could just as easily be taken off this inner circle part of the Court, or worse. He's not naive enough to think that if he's too disruptive, the Court won't find a way to get rid of him. He's read of other Court members whose deaths seemed… convenient.

As the only person controlling Drake Industries, and with freshly killed parents, his position is not nearly as secure as he'd like it to be. He'd be easy to quietly get rid of, and it would be _profitable_. Drake Industries would likely be torn apart by other companies controlled by the Court, sold off to add to their empires. He can't afford to be anything but obedient right now.

"Alright," he agrees, faking acquiescence that he doesn't at all want to. "I'll shut the projects down."

"Thank you, Timothy," the Grandmaster says, with no hint that the other man hears any of the thoughts circling in his head. "That's appreciated. So…”

He grinds down on his displeasure, making sure no one at the table can see that he doesn't like what he's been told to do, and goes back to listening for the rest of the meeting. A little swirl of discontent starts in his chest, as he quietly catalogs all the things that he doesn't entirely agree with, some much more than others. As it cements in his mind that the Court is slowing things down, stopping any sort of progress before it happens, and that's just… It just feels so _wrong_.

He's never quite realized how old fashioned and, well, _old_ , most of the Court is. Old money, old values, and resistance to change.

He doesn't like it _at all_.

Things could be done better. If Gotham was a cleaner, better city, it would be more profitable. Companies could expand, crime could be reduced, Gotham could be praised as the same kind of shining city that Metropolis is. It would just take a commitment to _improvement_. Sure, there might be a slight loss of income to start with, but then it would be paid back at least double, if not more.

Why should things stay the same as they have before? Why not let the best company win, and just free everyone to research and invent anything they want? Let the new age come, instead of holding it back?

It's a treasonous thought, a _terrible_ thought, but maybe… Well, maybe someone else more willing to pave the way to a better city should be leading. Maybe the old guard needs to be cleared out, so things can really _change_.

Maybe he should be the one to do it.

* * *

The first thing that comes to mind is that he's going to need to have a better position within the Court. He's young, which is a problem, but if he proves himself enough then it won't matter, it'll just have to be something very impressive to make everyone forget that he's still technically a minor. He can't afford to spend somewhere close to a decade building up power and respect; he doesn't want to. So, that means doing something impressive, something no one else could do or at least something no one else has managed.

Unfortunately, with the Grandmaster keeping watch over his company, and strangling back any new advances, that entire part is useless. The Court won't be impressed with anything he builds on his own — rich socialites are _never_ impressed by hard work — and he can hardly do anything else without letting it leak to one Court member or another either. Which means it has to be something personal. Something off the radar. Something that he can do completely by himself that's interesting enough in a sort of layman way that the normal members of the Court would actually be interested to.

Well, the biggest currency in the entire Court is information. Actual currency and all of the business is handled by the inner circle for the most part, so favors and such aren't going to cut it. He needs information that people will pay _dearly_ to have, he needs something that no one else knows, or at least no one can confirm. Something monumentally _big_.

He spends weeks thinking about it, trying to figure out anything that actually fills those requirements, and for weeks, nothing crosses his mind. He can think of useful things, and things _he'd_ be interested in knowing, but nothing that everyone wants but no one knows.

Of all things, he's in the car and being driven to Drake Industries to work for the day when it finally clicks in his head. As he's staring out the window, idly listening to the news on the radio. A report about a kidnapping the day before, the young girl saved, the kidnapper found kneecapped with the evidence taped to him, at the station. The radio turns to what that evidence is, and he draws in a sharp breath.

" _Batman_ ," he breathes, gaze rising towards the top of the skyscrapers as if he's actually going to see that shadow at the top of one of them. Not in the middle of the day; of course not.

 

_Everyone_ wants to know who Batman is. Having that information would be an enormous piece of leverage for the Court, and it's something that absolutely no one else has figured out, so he'd definitely be praised for it. That would be more than impressive enough to get him the respect his mind deserves, plus, it's something he's wondered himself many times. He's never put the effort into figuring it out, but it can't be all that hard, can it? No one else has figured it out, but then he's found that almost everyone else in the world tends to feel pretty stupid next to him, and he's deciphered problems that no one else seems to have been able to touch.

It's maddening sometimes, honestly. It can feel like everyone is a dozen steps behind him, on a bad day. On better ones, he can manage to have pretty good conversations with most people, but rarely about the quality of puzzles that his mind focuses around.

Like _Batman_. That’s something he wants to know himself, not just know for the sake of what it will make other people think of him.

When he gets to his office he takes a quick look at his schedule — nothing official, thankfully — quickly works through the stack of papers awaiting his attention as CEO of the company, and by lunch has cleared everything off his plate so he can get to work on more pressing questions. When he really puts his focus into something, like getting all of the miscellaneous paperwork done, it never takes that long to finish.

He starts with the simplistic pieces of evidence.

Judging by footage — which is fairly rare, most of it seems to have been wiped by a rather expert hand — and comparisons of background people or items, Batman seems to be roughly six-foot-four. Subtract a couple inches for the thickness of the armor and the boots, that puts him at roughly six-foot-two, which is a good start. A good build, more than good muscle tone to be able to pull off what he does — the suit doesn’t look mechanized — and the only piece of skin to go off of is the man’s lower jaw. In-between skin, not very pale or very tanned, and certainly either white or Caucasian, though the skin tone should be taken with a grain of salt because that can be changed with enough make-up. That brings his search down to a six-foot-two, white, in shape man.

At the least, he’s almost one-hundred percent certain it’s a man.

The second clues are all of the gear the man has. The batarangs are made to be disposable, but by reviews they’re good quality, sturdy metal. Definitely not handmade, or at least not by someone who isn’t some kind of expert. The sheer _quantity_ he seems to have, nevermind the grapnels, smoke grenades, flash-bombs, and various vehicles, implies a good deal of wealth. Unless he’s some kind of master engineer with an abundance of time on his hands and enough money to keep himself stocked with materials, there’s simply no way Batman is making all his gear himself. It has to come from somewhere.

If it comes from somewhere, it might be able to be tracked, but that’s a lead for later on. For now, he can focus on specific reports of what that gear he has is. A lot of it seems to be close to or on the cutting-edge of technology, at least the stuff used to take down bigger, nastier villains, which means that, again, either Batman is a technological genius or he’s getting these weapons from someone else. He must also have either no social life, or one that he can avoid for days or sometimes weeks at a time, which would probably mean no job. He’s skilled, yes, but Batman gets hurt or at least bruised pretty often. Hiding those kinds of injuries while holding down some sort of job would be a nightmare.

A six-foot-two, white, in shape man. Extreme wealth, access to some kind of tech lab, probably no job, and frequent injuries. And, undoubtedly, he’ll live in or directly outside of Gotham. There’s a start.

Wealth is easiest to track.

He brings up the ‘wealthiest of Gotham’ lists for the past couple years, along with an actual census for household incomes, and then weeds off anyone on both of them who isn’t white or male. That leaves a good chunk, so next he goes by height. The average person is five-foot-nine, so unless the man in that suit has some very, very thick boots — which is quite impractical — he’ll have to stand out for his height. He cuts it at six feet, to be cautious, which eliminates a good number of the suspects. Not all of them though, and most people with the kind of wealth that he’s looking at wouldn’t have much trouble finding some sort of lab to build things for him.

Next, he eliminates any of the men over sixty; staying cautious, again. It’s probably a younger to middle-aged man, but he doesn’t know exactly what kind of enhancements that suit might have, so it’s possible an older man could be in it, if he was fit enough.

The next step is a simple one. He just takes off all the names that he knows are his fellow Court members. It’s not completely impossible that Batman could be a member of the Court, but it’s not likely from what he knows of the man’s morals. He doubts that Batman would stand for how the Court’s servants are created; boys and girls kidnapped and conditioned into obedience seems like something that would have gotten them all killed by now if Batman knew about it. If he completely strikes out on the remaining suspects — which make up a _very_ short list — he can consider Court members again.

He leans back in his chair, considering the five names on the list and what he knows of them. He’s done his best to make sure that he knows just about everything he can, about everyone. That was his game as a kid, and he realized pretty quickly that it was actually a very useful thing to do. Information is power in most circles.

Three CEOs, two of which commonly have negotiations and meetings, and work the same schedule that he does. Unlikely. One actor, which is impossible; no way someone could be an actor and Batman at the same time. Not without people knowing, anyway.

His gaze lingers right in the middle of the list, on the second-to-last name.

Bruce Wayne. Public playboy, owner of Wayne Enterprises and all of its smaller divisions; a titan of a company with very few serious rivals. Drake Industries isn’t one of them; a lot of their work is actually contracted from W.E. It has a cutting edge tech lab, and Bruce Wayne doesn’t actually run it, from what he understands. He signs papers and occasionally sleeps through a board meeting, but he doesn’t actually have much of anything to do with the company apart from being the ‘Wayne’ at the head of it all. The last Wayne, actually. That sounds familiar.

The attitude would definitely be a point against the possibility of him being Batman, but then, he doesn’t really have any problem believing that the person managing to juggle Batman and a public profile would be quite the talented actor. It would take skill to convince people that frequent injuries were no big deal, and to not give any too obvious tells when it came to interviews and such. Anyone who’s at all in the public spotlight is eventually going to get asked what they think of Batman.

His gaze drops to the last name, and it’s a decent one. Veteran, known to publically be approving of Batman’s methods, and against the corruption of the city. Frankly, it’s a wonder the Court hasn’t had him killed yet, given how vocal he is. But something in him just _rankles_ at the thought.

Batman… Batman must be _smarter_ than that. There’s no way Batman would make himself that much of a target in his public life, would he? Being Batman requires an _enormous_ amount of intelligence, he’s absolutely sure of it. The person behind Batman must have a mind that he’d honestly love to meet; it must be somewhere close to his own. On top of that, extreme focus, discipline, etcetera. The skills to be Batman couldn’t have come from nowhere, it would have required extreme training, probably all across the world, which would mean a long absence outside of the public eye.

He pauses just for a moment, and then takes the absolute simplest route and opens up the Wikipedia page for Bruce Wayne.

Both parents killed by a mugger when he was a child. Didn’t emerge socially until his early twenties, roughly the same time Batman started appearing, and was all but completely off the map for a good number of years before that.

He digs deeper. Into public record and search results; anything he can find.

High test scores as a kid, almost prodigy level, but those flattened out after the death of his parents. A high school degree but no college classes. Publically known as a carefree playboy, and prone to injury from ridiculous sources; mainly high-risk stunts of the sorts billionaires are sort of known for doing. Nothing too odd, but it _fits_. All of it fits.

Could it be that easy? Could it _really_ be that easy? How has no one else figured this out, if it really is that simple?

He hesitates, and then throws ‘Bruce Wayne is Batman’ into Google, to see what comes up. There are a few threads, in various forums debating the identity of Batman, and he reads through about four of them before he almost starts laughing out loud. It’s not obvious, but there’s a pattern to the surfacing of the idea and the subsequent shutdown. It’s psychological _warfare_ ; purposeful introduction of an idea that sounds so ridiculous — when introduced so poorly — that it gets rejected out of hand. It’s… God, it’s _genius_. He’s actually really impressed.

Give people the truth, but make it sound so absurd it can’t be real, and no one looks further. It really is that simple.

He can’t be sure, of course. Not without some sort of evidence. Bruce Wayne might be his primary suspect, but he’s going to have to wait to get together enough proof to convince other people. And he’ll have to do it quietly, so no one catches on to what it is that he’s trying to do.

This… Now this could be a _fun_ game.


	7. Chapter 7

He's twenty-three when things start to change. It's nothing that he saw coming, nothing he ever even imagined he would consider, but it happens nonetheless.

He's practicing with Jason, working out downtime in one of the easiest ways they have to dispel excess energy. Jason's not really a threat to him, probably never will be, but he's miles better than he was before they made him another Talon. Under both his training and his Sir's, Jason's learned to kill in more ways than the sudden slip of a knife in between the ribs of a lured victim. His talent is still in seduction and distraction — it still impresses him to watch Jason wind anyone and everyone around his fingers — despite how very large he's turned out to be, but he's gained quite a bit of skill in more flat out combat too.

Jason's actually physically stronger than he is, and just as flexible, but he's faster and he's got years and years more experience than his partner. Although he can get in trouble if he lets Jason get a hold of him, or down in a pin, almost all of the time he wins their sparring sessions. He'd win a real fight too, he's sure, if it ever came to that.

But this is really only ever playing, and he never treats it as seriously as a real fight unless they're being directly observed by his Sir. That's very rare, these days. From what he's heard, the Court is searching for a new child to take in and train as the next Talon; not actively yet, but if they happen across one that fits their needs. They're always searching for more servants.

He's not worried. If he's ever set against a new Talon, he'll kill them. Besides, these days he has Jason at his side, and he's sure that Jason would help him with whatever he asked, especially against any kind of an outside enemy. There's more to being a Talon than brute force, and he could do a lot to a new Talon that would stop them from being their best in a fight.

Jason's taught him a lot too. How to read the members of the Court, how to know what they want and predict what they'll actually ask for, and some of how to project what people want to see. Or hide what they don't. His reactions aren't as naked as they used to be, and he thinks that's the most useful thing that Jason's taught him. He's not great at hiding behind any kind of fake emotion, like Jason is, it feels too unnatural, but he doesn't really need that anyway. The Court isn't used to seeing him show emotion as clear as that, it would be as bizarre as if Jason simply stopped hiding anything and showed exactly what he felt, which usually seems to be some level of boredom.

They want him calm and obedient, they want Jason welcoming and desiring. That's lowered some since Jason became a Talon, but most of the Court still views him as something to be used, not wielded. Jason doesn't seem to mind, so he's let it be. In fact, he's fairly sure that Jason almost enjoys returning to what he was originally trained for, or at least it seems like it's comforting to him. He doesn't understand that, but he doesn't ask either. What Jason thinks isn't his business, unless the Court demands it.

Always, the Court comes before anything else.

He slams Jason down against the ground, getting a sharp grunt as he moves to straddle his partner's back, one hand gripping the back of his neck and the other twisting one long arm backwards. Jason hisses, makes a pretty good attempt at breaking free, but he holds the pin until Jason relents with an aggravated groan and taps his free hand against the floor.

Then he lets go, swinging one of his legs over so he can just lie down against the cement floor, pressing close to line himself up against the length of Jason's body. Jason turns enough to look at him, mouth curved in a small smirk as he shifts, one hand rising to find his and tangle their fingers. He gives a tiny hum of satisfaction — he's picked that up from Jason — and leans in so he can rest his forehead against his partner's, noses just barely brushing. Jason echoes his sound, shifting forward enough to more purposefully bump their noses together.

The physical feels good. Just to touch and be touched, without it being a deliberate action meant to either do something to him or make him do something. It's an indulgence that he never realized he missed until Jason became his official partner, and it was no longer frowned on that they spent most of their free time with each other. He knows that his Sir doesn't particularly approve of the fact that Jason and he do this, but he hasn't been told to stop, and he doesn't intend to stop unless he's ordered. He _enjoys_ this.

It's never gone further, not since Jason was set to trick him for a graduation test. He's found that without Jason actively playing him, without that push and pull for _more_ , he doesn't really want it. At least, not enough to risk upsetting what they have here. He knows that Jason would have sex with him if he asked, that was part of their agreement, but despite the occasional stirring of desire he simply doesn't want to ask something of Jason that might not be given entirely willingly.

He is not the Court; he doesn't want to demand that Jason serve him in the same way, when Jason seems perfectly content with this level of physical closeness.

"A minute?" he asks, pressing his legs against Jason's.

Jason doesn't agree vocally, just lightly tightens the grip on his fingers and presses a little bit closer. He feels his mouth flicker a tiny bit, into a faint smile before he relaxes against the floor and just lets himself drift in the warmth and simple comfort of it.

He and Jason share quarters, and a bed, most of the time. Jason does still have a reserved room up in the Court's pleasure area, but he's only in it when he's requested, or if the two of them want to relax without even considering any kind of cameras. He doesn't care that his Sir thinks that they're having sex; it isn't true, but he's never been asked either so he's never volunteered the information. Of course he'd tell if asked, but he gets the impression that his Sir doesn't actually want to know what he's doing with Jason.

Drifting as they both are, breath mixing and bodies close, time is easy to lose track of. He still snaps back to awareness when he hears footsteps though, and Jason reacts just a fraction behind him. Their hands part, and he pushes up to somewhere between sitting and crouching as Jason lies down on his back, one arm behind his head. After all this time it doesn't surprise him any more how different their automatic responses are. He aims to look ready, and aware. Jason, in contrast, relaxes back and stops looking like any kind of threat.

It's Jason's previous Sir that appears in the door, gaze flicking over their positions — Jason is already rising to kneel instead of lying back — before flicking one hand in a 'come' sort of gesture. "Both of you are to appear as ornamentation in the Court's current party. Talon," his gaze is aimed towards Jason, "make sure that both of you are clean and in uniform, then come upstairs; you'll be escorted. Be quick, boys."

That's all that they get before Jason's previous Sir is turning and leaving, sweeping back out of sight in the span of a breath. Jason is standing, and he follows out of habit more than any real thought. Then he crosses over and follows Jason to retrieve a set of each of their Talon uniforms from the built in storage closet in their room, and lets Jason ferry him out into the rest of the base. He knows what to do, but clearly the order from Jason's last Sir has spurred his partner into obedience, and he's content to simply let Jason guide him.

It's not the first time they've been summoned to be displayed for the Court; it's not unusual for the Court to want to appreciate their servants. Jason's pointed out to him that the Court gets a thrill out of having killers like them leashed and controlled, and he doesn't really understand why that is, but then he's never really understood any of the Court's thought processes. That's not what he was taught to do, but Jason _was_ taught to understand the Court’s desires, so he trusts Jason's opinion of why the Court does things.

He lets Jason all but guide him through a fast shower, cleaning him up and getting him in his uniform. He's just a little amused at all of it, but he understands. After all, it's an order.

Once Jason's gotten them both clean and in uniform, he takes just half a second to press up against Jason's shoulder, lean his weight in for a moment. Jason pauses, then gives a tiny smile and returns the press. Then he lets Jason fall in at his side as they head up through the corridors to the Court's base. Halfway there, they get joined and 'escorted' by two of the Court's more basic servants, as promised.

They're led up to one of the Court's smaller engagement rooms, and it's a more quiet buzz of conversation that meets them, not the louder crowds that are usually part of these sorts of gatherings. There are seven members of the Court in the room, including the Grandmaster. They’re members of the inner Court, he’s fairly sure; Jason would know for certain. He’s also pretty sure that not all of them are here, but he doesn’t have all that much contact with members of the Court apart from the Grandmaster. Not directly, anyway.

They all look fairly intoxicated already, the conversation occasionally interrupted by bright bursts of laughter, and they're guided in and about a third of the way into the room, before the servants withdraw back against the wall. He falls into a resting position easily, standing straight and tall with his gaze lowered to the floor, hands loose and faintly curled at his sides. Jason is about two steps to his right, and in the same position, though his partner's blue-green eyes are raised a little more, unobtrusively watching the members of the Court. Reading them, anticipating desires. He watches Jason from the corner of his eye in turn; he'll get more of a clue from his partner than from the Court members.

Whatever it is that Jason sees, it makes him shift his weight back half an inch, gaze dropping completely to the floor as if Jason is actually trying _not_ to draw attention, which is a bit strange. It stirs a thread of unease in his chest that he decides rather instantly that he doesn't at all like.

The Court approaches, and he stays still, only half listening to the conversation; enough to make sure that if he's called to attention, he can answer without hesitation.

The topic is something about tolerance and the various states of their skin, and yes, at least most of the Court around them if not all are fairly heavily intoxicated. There's also something in the air he doesn't like, something predatory that almost feels like it's his Sir circling around him, watching for weakness and ready to strike the instant it happens.

Then one of the hands exploring his uniform rises, curling in his hair, and _yanks_ downwards. It doesn't really hurt, but he lets his neck arch back and drops to his knees, as the pressure seems to desire.

"I think _this_ one," says a darkly pleased, male voice. The fingers in his hair are hard, and he pushes away that thrill of unease that rises, giving in to the idea of obeying whatever he's been chosen for. Though if it's sex, which this sort of feels like, he imagines that they'll be rather disappointed in him. That's one area that Jason's given him absolutely no training in.

The Grandmaster is standing in front of him, and that mask tilts towards Jason before focusing above him. "Are you sure? That Talon is used to what you want, but this one…” A hand reaches out, pulls Jason's chin up a bit. "This one is still new; he'll make better noises."

Jason is perfectly still, and that confuses him. Normally, Jason would be smiling, teasing, getting everyone around him interested with all of that training that he’s been given. But not now, so what is it that he’s missing? What’s going on that he’s not understanding?

“True,” the man at his back says. The hand in his hair lets go, and then he can just barely see the man from the very corner of his eye as he goes to Jason and steps up behind him. There’s the same harsh yank to Jason, fingers curling tight in black hair, and Jason drops to his knees with a small gasp and a decent thud on impact.

He can see the way that Jason's back is arched a little bit more than is natural, expression a kind of slight wariness that quickly eases into simple surrender. It's not Jason's natural, but it _is_ one of Jason's masks that he's seen before, and that relaxes him a little bit. Jason isn't actually unnerved — he's seen that before; knows what it looks like — he's just pretending to be. He doesn't understand why yet, but Jason knows all these games better than he does. He trusts Jason's choice of tactics.

There's a moment of silence, before the man at Jason's back says, "Alright, this one. Get up, Talon."

Jason obeys, and then follows the grab and pull of the Court member to take him over to where there's a couch near one semi-circular collection of chairs and such. He watches Jason stand still as the Court member — and the Grandmaster — pull apart Jason's uniform, stripping it down to his waist, and then shove him forward against the back of the couch. Jason almost automatically leans in, bracing both hands against the couch without order and rounding his back, head lowering between his arms.

The Court member laughs behind the mask, stepping away. "That eager, huh?"

The Grandmaster turns to him, and flicks one hand in dismissal, silently signalling for him to back up towards the wall. Silently, not really wanting to draw the attention of that other man, he gets to his feet and obeys, backing up until he's standing fairly close to the wall, one servant not far from him. The other is gone, circling around the room with the quiet gait of someone used to blending in with the background, holding something in one hand. It takes him a moment to identify it as what looks like some sort of flogger.

His mind makes connections he doesn't like — the flogger, Jason's bared back, the reference to him being used to this — and he goes very still, watching the servant circle all the way around and offer the flogger — three narrow strips sharpening to points — to the Court member that seems to want this. When he swings it through thin air, it _cracks_ loud enough to make several of the other Court members jump and then laugh. Jason is still, and the Grandmaster moves over and stands at one end of the couch, sitting down on an arm and apparently settling in to watch.

He tenses when the Court member starts swinging, watching Jason's shoulders jump with each blow, fingers curling against the couch's back. The Court member isn't powerful, not like his Sir, but he's swinging as hard as it seems he can, and even a weaker person can swing a flogger hard enough to hurt fairly badly. He knows that. He's been beaten enough times for his mistakes, usually with a whip and not a flogger, but sometimes a variety of tools was used against him.

Jason sucks in a sharp breath and flinches forward at the first strike to draw blood, and he shifts forward half an inch before pulling back. The Court member only seems to get more vicious with the reaction, and it isn't long before more blood is drawn; Jason's skin sliced apart in a dozen small spots, blood starting to bead on the surface.

This is… wrong. This is _very_ wrong.

Jason hasn't done anything to deserve a whipping. He's been obedient, he's done what the Court's ordered, why is Jason being punished? That doesn't make sense; punishment doesn't come without a crime to punish. Why discipline without the punished party being aware of what it's for? It's wrong. There's no point to it. Pain for pain's sake is something to be avoided; pain is for when you've done something wrong, to learn not to do it again. Whether that's simple pain of failure — like a broken bone from a blow not dodged — or discipline to discourage incorrect behaviors.

This is punishment without focus; it won't accomplish anything.

Jason is tense, rocking forward with the blows, and he catches glimpses of gritted teeth and clenched hands. The Court is talking amongst themselves, laughing, apparently unconcerned and even amused at the sight of Jason being beaten. That disturbs him somewhere deep inside his chest, makes him uneasy and wary.

Far in the back of his mind, there comes the thought that his Sir would _never_ allow something like this. His Sir might not _like_ Jason, not really, but punishment without a clear cause is something that Sir would never allow. To _hurt_ isn't the same as to discipline. He's been taught to torture, but even that isn't without point. What's the _point_ of this?

Jason hisses, then jerks harder away from the next strike, almost up against the couch. He resettles in the next second, but then the next blow comes with a sharper sound; clear pain. He watches, that feeling in his chest only growing as Jason gets louder, moves more, is clearly in more _pain_.

At least until the Grandmaster, still sitting on the couch, asks, "You know he's playing you, don't you?"

There's a moment of silence, where the room seems to pause. Jason's head twitches to the side, and the Court member beating him stills, holding the flogger upright but not swinging yet. The Grandmaster shifts, head turning to look at Jason for a moment, and then back to the man behind him, otherwise still but still holding the room's attention.

"Talon," the Grandmaster says, and he straightens a little bit before it becomes clear that Jason's the one being spoken to, "drop the act."

Jason is still for a moment, but then dips his head in obedience. The mask of wariness and pain fades away, and Jason straightens up a little bit, relaxing most of that tension. There's still an edge of pain to Jason's gaze and stance, but it's not borderline-overwhelming the way it looked a moment ago. It's reassuring to realize that Jason's been exaggerating the effect of the beating, but it's also _not_. He's well acquainted with how much the Court hates to be played by their own servants. Some of Jason's very first beatings under his Sir were for trying to play his Sir the same way he played other members of the Court.

It's very rare that any of the people Jason manipulates realize that it's happening though, which normally saves him any of that punishment. After all, Jason's entire purpose used to be to give the Court what they wanted, to be _who_ they wanted. If the Court knew it was happening it would have defeated the purpose.

"Been trying to fool me?" the Court member with the flogger says, and the tone sets off instant warning bells in his mind. _Anger_.

The flogger swings, and this time Jason's jerk is real, and the flogger raises a sharp line of blood. Jason gives a hiss but stands still, accepting the newly invigorated, and nastier, swings of the floggers without struggle. By the way the Grandmaster pulls away, moving off to talk with other members of the gathered Court, that seems to have been the entire point he was there. The worry is back, because this time Jason's pain is real, and the wounds aren't surface stings anymore, and how far is this going to _go?_

He bites down on his own tongue, digging the claws on one glove into his thigh until it breaks through his uniform and scratches his skin, distracting himself. No matter what happens to Jason, he can't step in. They're servants of the Court above all else, and this is what's required of Jason at the moment. No matter what is demanded, no matter how badly Jason is hurt, it's not his place to speak out against it. The Court's orders come before everything else.

Even if they were to kill Jason, that would simply be how it is. There's _nothing he can do_.

One of Jason's knees buckles and he falls, a cry of pain muffled by gritted teeth.

"Get up!" the Court member demands, lash falling again over Jason's shoulders, scattering droplets of blood. The straps are wet and shiny with Jason's blood, and he sinks his claws a little harder into his thigh to not visibly react.

How can the other Court members condone this? His Sir would _never_.

Jason obeys, knee bearing his weight with just a bit of struggling, shoulders rising as both arms tense to hold him up on the couch. He lasts a little longer before he's falling again, both knees giving this time, weight crashing into the back of the couch. The Court member demands that Jason get up, keeps _hitting_ him before he can, and Jason's arching underneath each strike, back still bared and head bowed, even as he tries to obey the command to stand and keeps failing.

"I _can't_ ," Jason finally gasps, then _shouts_ at the immediate blow to his low back.

A couple more, and then the Court member is reaching down, grabbing Jason's hair and dragging him up. Jason's teeth are gritted, hands carefully curled at his sides despite the clear instinctive desire to strike against the thing causing him pain. The Court member leans down, dragging Jason up another couple inches and hissing something into Jason's ear. Then Jason is dropped against the floor, and the Court member is dropping the flogger to the floor next to him and walking off, dismissive.

He waits, despite how he wants to move, for the Grandmaster to turn from a conversation and towards him. A glance, and then a flick of a hand towards Jason, another silent order.

He has to force himself not to rush forward, just to move with the same deliberate quietness he always does, until he can kneel down next to Jason. Jason’s bleeding, kneeling with both arms braced on the floor, head hanging low. He catches a flash of hazed eyes, and then carefully eases himself underneath one of Jason’s arms to help his partner up. Jason is heavy, but he manages to get both of them to the door, and out from under the Court’s gaze. Jason’s breathing hard, clearly in a _lot_ of pain, and none too steady on his feet.

He’s not doing well.

He gets them down, closer to the divide into the utilitarian parts of the Court’s base. It’s slow going, with Jason not really able to focus on more than breathing and taking one step at a time.

Then there’s a figure approaching, and he pauses and shifts to one side of the corridor to let the other man pass. He’s wearing a Court mask, black hair, smaller than either of them. The Court member slows down next to them, pausing and clearly looking over the two of them, from his support of Jason to Jason’s bleeding back.

“What have you done _now_ , Talon?” the Court member asks, tone dismissive.

The unease in him sharpens, spikes, and over Jason’s head he snaps, “ _Nothing_. He didn’t do _anything_.” The Court member flinches back a step, body language startled, and Jason sucks in a sharp breath.

“ _Don’t_ ,” Jason hisses, with a glance up at him. “I’m—” A choked breath, and Jason hangs a little heavier against his side. “I’m sorry, Master. He didn’t mean it.”

There’s a moment of tension between all three of them, before the Court member gives a small nod and says, “Talon, take him to the infirmary. Make sure those heal as cleanly as possible, whatever you have to use. If anyone tries to stop you, tell them an Inner Court member gave you permission. Make sure he’s taken care of.”

The feeling in his chest softens, and he gives a shallow nod, lowering his gaze for a moment.

Jason’s head lifts a few inches in contrast, and his partner breathes, “Thank you, Master.”

The Court member echoes his nod, and then sweeps off down the corridor. He hoists Jason a little higher, and resumes carrying him towards the lower levels of the Court.


	8. Chapter 8

He’s twenty-one when his whole world shifts, getting pulled from a dozen directions at once and making him rethink his view of everything.

The beating isn’t really unexpected. He’s pleased Court sadists before, and he knows how to play them. From the moment he sees the man circling around, he clues into what’s about to happen. It all would have gone just fine if the Grandmaster hadn’t pointed out that he was faking; he knows that he had the sadist fooled right up until that revelation. The reveal made him nastier, made him more determined to cause pain, and that went just about as well as expected.

He doesn’t really know why the Grandmaster did that, but it’s not his business.

Then Talon _snaps_ at the Court member they run into in the corridor outside, startles the young man and shocks him too. He runs interference without thinking about it, trying to make sure that Talon doesn’t get the skin _flayed_ from him for actually lashing out at one of the Court — even just verbally — and luckily the Court member seems to let it go without any offense being taken.

He waits until he’s patched up — his back is on _fire_ even after the painkillers that Talon had him swallow — and back in his safe, camera-free service room before turning on Talon.

“What were you _thinking?_ ” he demands, shoving Talon back a step and giving as sharp a glare as he can manage while leaning against the wall. “Snapping at a Court member?! Were you looking to get punished?”

Talon is holding his gaze, unnatural eyes narrowed and a tense, restless kind of _energy_ to his posture. “They wouldn’t allow both of us to be out of commission at the same time,” Talon says dismissively, and then slides into motion. He stares as Talon paces to one side of the room and then turns on a sharp heel, gaze sliding about the room as if checking for surveillance even though they both know there isn’t any.

Talon looks like some kind of caged animal, like something angry and dangerous and a step from violence, and it’s concerning. It’s _new_ ; he’s never seen Talon so clearly affected by anything, and he doesn’t know what it is that caused it. He doesn’t know what turned his steady, calm, loyal partner into something that almost looks _vicious_ ; he’s seen Talon take beatings just as bad and not really care.

“What’s _wrong_ with you?” he asks, and gets the instant attention of those yellow eyes. “I’ve _never_ seen you lash out at a Court member.”

Talon stills for half a second, then circles around towards him, one hand — bare of its glove — reaching out to touch his shoulder and the bandages hooked over it. “They _hurt_ you,” Talon says, quiet but _intense_.

He can only stare for a second, utterly confused. “So what?” he ends up asking. “It happens; you know that.”

“Not like this,” Talon insists, gaze flicking to his shoulder and then back. “Pain is a tool to be used for punishment, and punishment without a clear reason is pointless; it doesn’t _teach_ anything. You didn’t do anything to deserve that.”

It snaps into sharp relief how very _differently_ they were trained. “That wasn’t—” He raises a hand, scrubs it over his face because he didn’t think he had to _explain_ sadism to Talon, of all people. “ _Shit_ , Talon, that wasn’t _punishment_. Some people just like to cause pain to others; part of my job is to satisfy those people. This isn’t the first time one of the Court’s beaten me.”

Then suddenly Talon’s hands are in his hair, pulling to press their foreheads together as Talon hisses, “No. That’s wrong; it’s _wrong_. Sir would never allow that. Beatings are for _punishment_ , pain is for _punishment_ , it’s not right to— _No_. You didn’t deserve it. They had no right to—”

“ _Woah_ ,” he interrupts, grabbing Talon’s shoulder. “Talon, _stop_. Calm down, alright? They had every right; they’re the _Court_. They could have beaten me to death and that would be their right, remember? We’re servants, and it’s not our place to decide what’s done to us.”

“You didn’t deserve it,” Talon repeats, fingers clenching in his hair. “You didn’t—”

Then Talon’s leaning in, mouth brushing over his and he can feel his breath catch at how completely unexpected it is. Talon’s _never_ shown an interest in him, not after their first meeting. Never given anything more than platonic touches, and never seemed to _want_ to. Now, Talon's mouth is a hard press, no skill but full of _feeling_ , and he responds on automatic. He shifts into it, angles their heads better, grips Talon's shoulder with one hand and raises the other to slide through that head of black hair and guide his partner. His back presses flat to the wall, and that _hurts_ , but he ignores it. It's just pain.

One of Talon's hands falls, presses down over his heart and splays out, as if he needs some kind of reassurance that it's still beating. He pushes away the urge to press this further, keeping his hands where they are and not sliding his arm around Talon's waist, not trying to coax his partner's mouth open like he would to anyone else. This is different, this is… It's _wanted_. Talon isn't just another Court member making use of his skills.

After he's breathless, after _Talon_ is breathless, he carefully breaks the contact. He presses his forehead to Talon's, squeezes that shoulder, and murmurs, "I'm okay, I promise. They didn't do anything they didn't have a right to, Talon, and I know how to deal with them. I'll heal."

Talon is tense, still, but finally gives a small nod. "Alright."

He gets the feeling that it's actually really _not_ , and that Talon is still thinking about all this, but that's about the best he can manage right now. He leans in, gets another kiss — shorter, softer — and then keeps his eyes closed as he asks, "Come lie down with me? I could use some sleep."

"Of course," Talon agrees, voice still off but he just doesn't have the energy to try and fix that right now. He needs to rest, to heal, to not be in service for at least a few hours so he can recover.

Talon shifts underneath his arm, all but carrying him over to the bed and then pulling the rest of his uniform off with practiced hands before easing him down into the bed itself. He watches as Talon pilfers a set of clothing from inside one of his drawers and changes into it, shedding the armor and the weapons. Both the shirt and the pants hang a little loose on Talon — somehow he ended up taller and wider than Talon despite their training pushing towards the opposite — but not enough to fall off, and when Talon climbs into the bed with him the fabric is soft against his skin.

He breathes out, letting Talon pull his head down to rest on his partner's chest, a careful hand resting on his side, long legs tangling with his. He lets himself curl a bit, closing his eyes and twisting one hand just enough that he can get a handful of the stolen shirt between his fingers and hang onto it. Then he relaxes as much as he can, ignoring the pain of his back and focusing on the feeling of Talon's presence and the brushes of his skin.

With Talon guarding him, how could he be anything but safe?

* * *

Things are easy for a few days. Apparently word gets around about what happened at the Court's gathering, at least a little, because no one requests his service, and Talon's Sir doesn't press him like normal. In fact, Talon's Sir — his Sir now, really; he should stop calling him 'Talon's’ — expressly forbids him from any kind of tougher activity, including sparring with Talon. He's allowed to sit and watch, and do whatever little things Tal— his Sir comes up with, but mostly he's just silently encouraged to rest.

Talon does seem at least a little right; their Sir doesn't seem to at all like the fact that he's injured. Nothing is actually said, but he can read the disapproval.

Five days after that gathering, he finally does get requested. He doesn't bother asking if the servant sent to fetch him knows whether the Court member is aware that he's hurt; either it's fine, or whoever it is will be disappointed and then send him back. Sending the servant to play messenger and be sure that the Court member _actually_ wants him like this would be a surefire way to piss them off. Better to go and then be rejected, than make the Court member ask twice.

Talon looks vaguely worried, but a harsh call from their Sir pulls him back to training. He doesn't need permission from their Sir to leave when he's been requested, so he just heads out. His clothes are good enough, and he hasn't been doing any training so it's not like he needs to clean off or anything either. He still cleans himself religiously every morning, as he was taught, and he hasn't done enough to need to fix that morning work.

His back still aches as he moves, the half-healed injuries pulling with every step, but he ignores it with ease. If he does too much, or stretches too far, he risks opening them again, but he doesn't expect to have that happen. He can walk and move just fine, it’s just anything that requires him to be more flexible — or take a hit — that he can't do right now. At least not without compromising how fast he'll heal, and he knows better than that. His looks are still a very high priority; letting his back scar too badly would distract from that and make him less desirable.

He slips into his service room, bringing a smile to his face, and finds a Court member sitting near the head of the bed, back against the headboard. He loosens his stride and then moves closer, keeping all hints of his pain out of his expression as he hits the foot of the bed and sits down at it, leaving the Court member room for now.

Mid-length black hair, younger, fairly small. It hits him hard and sudden that this is the Court member that Talon snapped at in the corridor.

He lets his gaze flicker up and back down the boy's body, disguising it as a lingering look while he hunts for signs of how he's expected to act. Most people come to him with an exact idea of what they want, and it's just a matter of pinpointing what part he's supposed to be playing. Is he the reluctant and forced boy? Is he the aggressive, dangerous Talon? Is he gentle and attentive, like a lover? Or, is this something else? Is this Court member looking to get back at him or Talon somehow for how he was snapped at?

He can't really find anything in the boy's posture to cue off of; it's deliberately closed off, not inviting touch. He doesn't quite look hostile, but he looks uninviting. He's not sure he's ever had someone come in and read like that to him. It's just a little disconcerting, but he'll play the odds. The boy's young, chances are good this is either a first time or relatively new still, so he'll want one of two things. Either to be treated gently, cared for, and made love to, or to be _taken_ on the edge of too-much, to experience what it might not be safe to get elsewhere.

He'll start with gentleness; it's much harder to back off of aggression than it is to speed up and strike.

"Master," he murmurs, dipping his head.

The boy's head tilts, peers at him for a long few moments through that mask. "Do you have a name?" he finally asks, and his voice is young too but calm, intelligent. Right, the boy _did_ say he was part of the inner Court.

"Talon," he answers simply, with a flicker of a smile and carefully open body language. "But you can call me whatever you want, Sir."

"I'm sure," the boy says, quietly enough that he doesn't think he's supposed to have heard. "Have you healed?"

"Enough." He offers a larger smile, shifts closer and ignores the ache of his back to crawl onto the bed, keeping low as he moves closer. "Don't worry, I can do anything you need me to."

"No."

He stops, confused at the flat refusal.

"Sit back down," the boy orders, "and take your shirt off."

It's easy to slide into motion, letting his legs stay out to the side as he leans back, smiling flirtatiously as he reaches down and hooks fingers under the bottom of his shirt so he can slowly drag it up his chest. "I can give you a real show if you want," he says, keeping his voice low and all but purring the words, trying for teasing and seductive instead of gentler.

He gets the shirt off, trails fingers down his chest, and gets another flat, "No."

Unease sparks in his chest, but he doesn't let it show. He lowers his gaze submissively, staying still and letting his mouth part just a touch, to make him look cowed. No gentleness, no flirting, and no voyeuristic desires. That at least narrows the options, and each option he exhausts gets him closer to finding the one that this boy wants from him. He just has to _find_ it, and then he can work as he's been trained.

"Will there be scarring?" he's asked, and he flicks his gaze up just far enough to see that mask for a moment.

"Some, Sir. Most of it should heal cleanly; the rest will fade."

This seems to be working better than his other approaches, because the Court member doesn't stop him or order him to do anything, just says, "Talon, your partner, didn't seem to approve of what the rest of the Court did to you. It was a rather surprising reaction, given his normal obedience. Do you know why he reacted that way?"

He gives a small nod, glances up again. "He didn't understand what was happening. He thought it was wrong; undeserved."

At that, the Court member finally shifts, turning and shifting off the bed with a derisive huff of breath. "Of course he did; complete _morons_." He watches, wary again, and the Court member flicks one hand and says, "Not you. You performed as you were taught to, from what I understand. It's the other members of the Court who deserve the fault here."

He holds his tongue, not entirely sure whether he's being tested for his loyalty, or if the Court member actually expects him to respond. It's safest just to be quiet and wait for whatever this line of thought is to finish, and then figure out how he's supposed to respond.

The Court member watches him, then steps forward — confident — and reaches out, taking his chin and pulling his head up with a gentle press of fingers. "You can't condition a man to believe that a beating is punishment for disobedience, and then expect him not to react when that belief is ignored. The man who beat you is a fool; he should never have done that with our primary Talon still in the room. He undermined the core conditioning that Talon is built on and it was a stupid mistake."

He stays still, meeting the round, black screens hiding the Court member's eyes and holding them. The unease in his chest strengthens a bit; training says he should agree with the man, play to him, but speaking out against other members of the Court might be a bad idea. He's still not sure if this is a test, and he's pretty sure that if it is, it's one he doesn't want to fail. It's not inconceivable to think that the Court might feel the need to test his loyalty, after Talon's slight outburst. Or even that this specific Court member might feel the need to test him, before bringing it up to the rest of the inner Court.

The hand on his chin lets go, and he dips his head in obedience, submission—

"No."

He raises his head again, looking the Court member right in the eye and letting just a trace of fear slide across his face. Just enough to entice the man, if that's what he wants, but small enough to be missed if it's not. That masked head tilts again, and he lets a bit more fear show, shifts his body language to be carefully contained instead of obedient, so it looks like he wants to pull away.

"You're _very_ good at this," the Court member says, sounding impressed. "Stop it. Drop all the masks; I want to know what's underneath all of that."

He pauses, and then says, "Most people that give that order don't actually want it."

"I do." The Court member reaches out again, tapping underneath his chin with two fingers. "Drop all of it. If you put another of these masks on, I'll tell the Grandmaster exactly what happened in that corridor."

He stiffens a bit, actually startled, and then shoves it away. He hesitates a moment, just breathes. Then he carefully lets all the fake emotion drain from his face, lets his eyes harden and his mouth fall to a flat line as he studies the smoothness of the mask. He can't see any of the expression past it, but the Court member does give a sharp sound of satisfaction, and the hand rises from under his chin to smooth a thumb over his cheek.

"Yes, that's better." That head tilts a bit further, and he's asked, "What are you feeling right now?"

He considers for a moment. "Nervous," he ends up answering.

"Why?"

"My job is to know what people want and give it to them, and I don't know what you want." He narrows his eyes a bit, lets his jaw set as he admits, "It sets me up to fail. I don't like it."

The Court member pulls back, standing tall and straight. "I want you to sit, get comfortable, and be honest with me. No masks, no more playing. I'm going to ask you questions, and you're going to answer them. If I suspect you're lying to me, I'll tell the Grandmaster what I know. Is that clear?"

He breathes out, slow and steady. "Yes, Master."

The Court member nods, and then steps to the side and gets back on the bed, sitting back against the headboard. Those suit-clad legs cross, and that back is straight, arms folded in his lap. Mimicking it, he obeys the order to get comfortable and pulls his legs up onto the bed and beneath him, sinking into an easy, cross-legged position and facing the Court member.

He stays still, waiting patiently until the Court member says, "Alright, let's start over. Do you have a name?"

"Talon."

"And before you were brought here? What was your name then?"

He pauses, and then answers, "Jason. Before I became a Talon I was called 'boy' or 'five,' usually."

"Jason, hm?" There's a sharp edge when the Court member asks, "Is Jason the name you prefer, or is it Talon?" He hesitates, and the Court member reminds him, "Answer honestly."

He pushes away his misgivings. "Jason," he admits. He waits a moment for some kind of reprisal for that, but none comes. His shoulders ease down again.

"You're quite close with Talon, aren't you?" The Court member's voice shifts, becoming amused. "In a sense of more than just strategic partners, right?"

"Yes." He tilts his head a bit, studies what little body language the Court member is giving away. "Do you want details about that?"

"How about clarification?" the Court member says, leaning back against the headboard and relaxing a touch. "Exactly what does your relationship with Talon involve? How does it work? What would you categorize it as?"

His mouth curls in a tiny smirk as he studies the Court member. "Full of questions, aren't you?"

The boy gives a small laugh. "You have the answers, don't you?"

He dips his head, and then lets the smirk fall away as he just thinks about the answers for a moment. "Partners," is the word he decides on. "We're not sexual, never have been. That night I was beaten, he kissed me for the first time of his own will — when we met I'd been ordered to play him and convince him to sleep with me. I did. We trust each other, but we're servants of the Court above all else and we agreed on that at the very start. Nothing that we're ordered to do is our own choice; we don't hold each other accountable for it."

"So Talon doesn't think that the Court member beating you was deserved. He's right, I suppose, in a way." The Court member taps a hand against one knee. "Enough to go against an entire lifetime of conditioning; that's rather impressive. He cares for you. If you hadn't stopped him, how far do you think it would have gone?"

"Would he have attacked you?" he rephrases, and the Court member dips his head in confirmation. He thinks about that, considering Talon's expression when he snapped, the tone of the voice hissing over his head, the tight grip of deadly hands on his torso. "No," he finally answers, "I don't think so. If you'd been aggressive, and come after me, then maybe, but I don't think he wanted to do more than defend me from any other kind of pain. I don't think he would have hurt you."

The Court member just looks at him for several moments; studying, if he had to guess. Then one thin-fingered hand rises, and pulls the mask off. He watches the face that comes into view, studying the arches and curves of it, the sharp, intelligent, crystal-blue eyes, and the soft-looking lips. Young, beautiful in a way that's on the edge of feminine. He's seen other boys in the Court's service specifically designed to look like that. Once upon a time he was one of them, until he outgrew all of it.

The mask is deliberately set aside, but he holds that freshly revealed gaze.

"My name is Tim," the Court member says, still studying him. "I'm a member of the inner Court, have been for a little over a year now."

"You seem young to be in the inside circle," he comments, and Tim's mouth curls into a small, sharp little smile.

"True." Both hands rise, and Tim counts off on fingers as he speaks. "I'm sixteen, a certified genius, legally emancipated, I've been the CEO of Drake Industries for that same year, and I was raised more by the Grandmaster than my own parents. This is my world."

He considers that information. and then bluntly asks, "What do you want from me?"

"What makes you think I want something?"

"The only person who interacts with me without wanting something is Talon," he points out. "Court members always want something. You wouldn't have come here, ordered me to drop my masks, asked me questions, and then removed _your_ mask unless you _wanted_ something from me. Probably something important, considering you're trying to blackmail me with Talon's safety, and that you chose to do this in my service room, which is one of the only places in this whole base without any kind of surveillance."

Tim's mouth curls in another smile. "That's not bad."

He gives a small shrug. "I'm not a genius, but the Court taught me to read people, figure out their desires, and mold myself to them. This one wasn't all that hard." He holds Tim gaze, watching the little flickers of emotions in his expression. It's easier when he doesn't have to hide the fact that that's what he's doing.

"And what if all I want from you is information?" Tim asks, studying him just as obviously.

"I'm at your service, Sir." It's sincere enough, even though he doesn't force any other emotion into the words. He doesn't need to. "Ask away."

"You are a _fascinating_ mix of obedient and insubordinate, Jason. You don't do that in front of others, do you?"

He gives a faint smirk. "You asked for me without my mask, and for honesty. This is it. I respect you as a member of the Court, I'll do what you order me to, but you're not the Grandmaster or either of my Sirs. I'm not conditioned to be obedient to you like I am them. If you want me to act the same way around you as I do them, it would be an act. Do you want me to?"

"No," Tim answers easily. "I spent my whole childhood reading people as a game; I'm not sure you're good enough to fool me so let's just skip the whole situation." Another tap of fingers to one knee as Tim studies him, gaze slipping down his frame, lingering on his shoulders and then down near his legs. "You don't have any actual desire to sleep with the Court members that demand your service, do you?"

He pauses for a moment, thinking back through to see if he _ever_ has, and then shakes his head. "No. It's my job, not a desire. I understand the physical attraction of it, but I've never actually been attracted to any of the Court members that requested my service. Not really."

Tim looks intrigued, and asks, "What about me?"

He takes a long look at Tim, gaze lingering on the pale arch of that throat, the close-fitting white dress shirt, the relative grace. Then answers, "No. You're pretty, but I wouldn't choose to have sex with you if I did have a choice in it. Maybe if I knew you better."

Luckily for the little thread of unease in his stomach, Tim doesn't seem to take any offense to that. Which he appreciates, considering he's only answering all this honestly because he's been ordered to. Instead, Tim gives him a knowing look, tilting his head until that black hair falls away from his throat.

"What about Talon?"

For a moment, he's lost for words.

Then he thinks about Talon’s eyes, his touch, the tiny curl to the corner of those lips. The answer comes from the pit of his stomach, and he just _knows_ it’s true as he murmurs, “Yes. Gladly.”


	9. Chapter 9

He's sixteen when his plans really begin to come together. He's found the evidence that he needed to confirm his suspicions about Batman's identity, through quite a bit of trial and error and long hours spent tracking various surveillance and reports. It takes longer than he would like, but that's not surprising given his opponent; not that Batman — __Bruce__ — is aware that they're playing.

Then a secondary piece just falls into his lap out of nowhere. A protective Talon, and the secondary Talon that he's so attached to. Dangerously attached, any of the other Court members would say, and actually he agrees. But in this case, that danger could prove to be a remarkably useful thing. Their original Talon, one kidnapped Dick Grayson, is faltering, and the other Talon, a boy formerly known as Jason Todd and originally a more pleasure-oriented servant of the Court, knows it too. It was a mistake of the Court to allow their Talon to grow attached to anyone, but no one else seems to have realized that yet.

Talon is protective of his partner, and before encountering them both in the corridor — Jason's back laid open and bleeding and done for __sport__ , the __idiots__ — he's never quite seen the Talons as so __human__. Underneath the loyalty beaten into Talon, underneath the yellow eyes and clawed gloves, is just another human. Deadly by design, but ultimately just another person that reacts and behaves in accordance to their upbringing.

What __fool__ thought that giving Talon only one person in the world who didn't hate, fear, or see him as beneath their heel was a good idea? It's no surprise that Talon's become so very attached to his partner, when Jason is the only person who treats him as another human being.

Jason, on the other hand, seems to be much less affected by the pairing. Still very attached, that was clear enough when he questioned the younger Talon, but also just as loyal to the Court as he ever was. Pleasure-oriented servants are raised much less strictly than Talons; they serve the Court in whatever the Court desires, whatever that might be. Pain and pleasure are two sides of the same coin for Jason; both are demanded from him and he gives them as is expected, no matter his own personal feelings.

If he could gain the loyalty of both Talons, or at least shake their faith in the Court enough, they could make perfect allies. He doesn't expect the Grandmaster to go easily, and having the killers of the Court side with him would more than make the difference. It might not be difficult at all to sway them to his side; both of them should be susceptible merely to being treated as humans. Talon, at the least, has already fallen once. It's trickier because he's a member of the Court, and not another servant, but he should be able to make it work. Jason, however…

What would be enough to make Jason's loyalty waver? Does he simply need to wait for the rest of the Court to dig their own graves, as they continue to treat the two as nothing more than tools? If Talon abandons the Court, will Jason follow? Probably, but it would be more certain if he could somehow force something to happen. He hates leaving things to chance.

"You're quiet tonight, Timothy."

He looks up, offering a smile that he realizes a moment later is hidden behind his mask anyway. "Just thinking," he answers easily, twirling the champagne flute in his other hand and meeting the eyes of the Grandmaster. "You know how my mind wanders sometimes, sir."

It's just the two of them for the moment, and most likely the observation came from the fact that he didn't acknowledge the departure of the third Court member that had been standing with them, engaged in a business conversation with the Grandmaster. He listened, of course, but his mind has better things to think about. Like the two figures standing against one wall, silently watching the proceedings behind their masks. They're being sent out somewhere later tonight — some target that he does not remember the Inner Court ever granting permission for, which means that the order came directly from the Grandmaster — but they've been conscripted to stand watch for the gathering.

It's a show of force; the Court recently welcomed in another old family of Gotham, and they're slight troublemakers so far. The Kane family, which __worries__ him a bit. Their relation to Bruce, to Batman, is something that he doesn't like, but he doesn't have enough of a voice here for what objections he could find in their history to be heard. Irritating, but not surprising.

"And what are your thoughts straying to tonight?" the Grandmaster asks, something fond and long-suffering to his tone. Almost familial, and if it were less important that his betrayal come out of nowhere he might inform the Grandmaster that they are __far__ from family.

"Figuring out behavioral patterns," he answers honestly. "Just an experiment I'm considering. I'm listening, Grandmaster, I swear."

The Grandmaster's head tilts, and he can hear the smile as the older man says, "I know you are. It's the others that might need some convincing, my boy."

Another smile behind his mask, letting it affect his voice as he dips his head. "Of course, Grandmaster. As you wish." He pauses a moment, lets his gaze slip up across the room to the red hair of one of their two newest members. "What do you think of the Kane family?" he asks, keeping his voice quiet enough that no one else around them will hear.

The Grandmaster pauses too, long enough that he thinks that he might have misstepped, even though he's asked more pointed questions before. "They're an old family," is the eventual answer, "wealthy, powerful, and their ties to the military will prove to be useful."

"The daughter was discharged from the military," he points out. "Honorable discharge; due to her sexuality. She won't have any standing in it, at least not any actual position."

"The father still does," the Grandmaster counters. "Despite her sexuality, I'm sure the daughter will prove to be useful in her own way."

He bites back the discontent at the back of his chest that it's not going to be __in spite__ of her sexuality; he's had to bite his tongue more times than he can count not to say anything damning when one of the Court makes disparaging comments about sexuality. But that might bring questions about his own, and the old fashioned thinking of the Court would condemn him as surely as they condemn everyone else that doesn't fit in their neat boxes. It's laughably hypocritical, given what he knows about what a fair amount of these Court members do with their private time.

He's seen which of their servants some of them visit, and it's __not__ the opposite gender they would be expected to.

"They have strong opinions," he says, and the Grandmaster gives a soft sigh.

"Timothy, you've voiced your concerns already. The Kanes are accepted as part of the Court, it is done. A show of force will bring them into line, and everything will proceed as it is supposed to. Unless you have new information, let the matter rest. It's __closed__."

"As you wish," he says, striving to make sure his voice doesn't come out as reluctant as he feels. He __does__ have that new information, but it's not something he's ready to share yet. That's his biggest victory; it's what he'll need to convince any of the Court that he's capable of running things as the new Grandmaster. Squandering it won't do anything but force him to find something new, and start a war that they may not be capable of winning.

Declaring war on Batman is a foolish move, in every way that he's considered. Batman keeps the gangs in line, in his own way he helps Gotham to be a better place, and attacking him would put them in his crosshairs. It's still possible that Batman doesn't even know they exist yet, and it would be best to keep it that way as long as possible.

"That show of force," he murmurs, when the Grandmaster doesn't say anything else. "Would that have something to do with who the Talons are going after tonight?"

The Grandmaster reaches out, __pats__ his head like he's still some kind of __child__. "That's not your business, Timothy. You'll see when it's done."

He isn't given any kind of a chance to respond. The Grandmaster moves away, off to speak to some other group, and he twirls his champagne and just watches, chewing over thoughts and words in his head and carefully swallowing them away. The longer he's beneath the cape of the Grandmaster, the less he can stand it. The old guard is __done__ ; he just needs to gain enough loyalty among the Court that he can take over. Hard, not impossible.

His gaze falls on the younger Kane again, how she's laughing with a woman, and how other members of the Court are eyeing her behind their masks. Subtle, but body language betrays them.

Well, __there's__ someone who might be more than amenable to a change of leadership.

* * *

He's amazed that no one else can see how Talon is starting to bridle. It's small things, __tiny__ things, honestly, but they're clear as day to him. Little moments of pause, of frank staring instead of lowered eyes, of little flashes of emotion that are quickly hidden again before anyone else notices. He could have manipulated things to happen sooner, but ultimately decided that the risk the two of them would find out was too high to risk speeding things up. He can't win loyalty from the Talons if __he's__ the one to hurt them.

The Court has another target for the Talons when things come to a head, an official who refuses to step in line with the rest — another thing he'll have to change is the Court's reliance on killing anyone who gets in their way; it's too obvious for his tastes — and the Talons have been called in to be briefed at the end of the Inner Court's meeting. A few are lingering; the ones with other business with the Grandmaster, would be his guess.

The assassination isn't planned to happen for a couple of days, it's just before the vote they want to swing in their favor. Again, too obvious for him, but they don't listen to him so he doesn't speak. Both Talons are standing still, bare-faced but in uniform, listening intently. It's nothing unusual.

Until they're dismissed, and one of the men of the Inner Court steps in and commands, "You, Talon. Come with me."

He realizes it before anyone else does. That Jason's the one being called for service, and that it's the same __idiot__ Court member who beat him before and caused Talon's original schism. Jason realizes a second later, expression shutting down a fraction more, and Talon is just a second behind. His reaction is more noticeable, but no one else is looking at him. Anger, and then dangerous steel.

The Grandmaster is stepping forward, saying, "Talon has a mission before long; I don't think—” but then Talon takes a sharp step forward as well, and then a second to place himself directly in front of Jason.

"No."

The entire room goes still for a moment, before the Grandmaster says, "Excuse me?"

Jason's utterly still, the fact that his eyes are a tiny bit wider than they should be the only hint that he's surprised. Horrified, he's almost positive. Talon twitches at the tone, but those yellow eyes are narrowed and his shoulders are drawn slightly down, protective and aggressive all at once. He stays still himself, careful not to draw attention as he watches.

" _ _No__ ," Talon repeats, and then his gaze turns solely to the Grandmaster, voice lowering a bit. "He does not deserve to be hurt. He hasn't done anything."

"That's not your decision," is the snapped answer. "You are a __servant__ to the Court, Talon; so is he. What we choose to do to him isn't your business, and you have __no__ say in it."

"He __doesn't deserve to be punished__ ," Talon stresses, with almost a hint of a pleading to his voice.

"Talon, __down.__ " It's not a shout, but the steel in the Grandmaster's voice is enough that Talon folds, falling to his knees and lowering his head in submission. "You." That's aimed at Jason, made clear by a flick of one hand. "Do you believe you can handle your next job by yourself?"

Jason's voice is steady; probably no one else but him can read the faint hints to the former pleasure-servant's expression that betray that he's unnerved by all of this. "Yes, Grandmaster."

"Good. Bring me a whip, Talon. __Now__."

It's a fraction of a second of hesitation — nothing by anyone else's standards — before Jason is giving a small bow and a, "As you wish, Grandmaster." Jason takes off, slipping out of the room around what Court members are still present.

Understanding what's coming, most of the Court members still in the room follow Jason out. He stays, as does the sadist who started all this trouble, and one other man who he knows also has a tendency towards sadism. He doesn't, as far as anyone knows, but he __is__ known for lingering behind and watching, so his presence shouldn't be noted as unusual. This is something that he needs to see through, so he can follow through exactly how he needs to. Not that he really believes this can go __any__ way but in his favor.

Still, better safe than sorry.

Talon stays kneeling as they wait, as both he and the members of the Inner Court still present shift to more comfortable positions. He leans against a wall, out of the way and out of direct line of sight of anyone, at least for the moment. The Grandmaster stands at the head of the table, cloak half-covering the way his arms are crossed; clear sign of displeasure, even without expression to go off of.

The room is silent, no one speaking, and of course Talon doesn't dare to either. It stays in a kind of stasis until Jason slips back through the door, gaze lowered and a whip coiled and held in his left hand. He strides across the room, kneeling to present the whip to the Grandmaster. It's taken from him, and then the Grandmaster lets the coils fall loose, raises it, ____shoulder rolling as he _ _snaps__ it into the air. Jason stays still apart from a tiny flinch; Talon doesn't even flinch.

For a moment, he wonders if Talon sees being punished himself as an improvement over letting Jason be beaten by the idiot sadist. It wouldn't surprise him.

"Strip him to the waist," the Grandmaster orders, voice still full of steel command.

Jason rises, crossing over to Talon and kneeling at his back, hands moving to strip the other Talon with clearly practiced fingers. It's only a matter of seconds before the reinforced uniform is being peeled down off of Talon's pale skin, exposing the stripes of scars that already mark his back, proof of past punishments. Almost all of them are faded; years old, if he had to guess. Talon hasn't been beaten in a long time, as far as he knows. At least not badly enough to leave scars like this.

"Get him up." Jason obeys the Grandmaster, playing to the crowd as he wraps his hand in Talon's black hair and pulls him up, arching that pale back and baring his throat. "Down on the table."

Jason is none too gentle about pulling him over to the table, pushing the Grandmaster's chair out of the way with one hand and then shoving Talon down onto it, keeping the grip in his hair even as he circles to leave Talon's back free. Talon's hands press against the table, but there's no struggle. He doesn't expect struggle; he doubts Talon would ever step out of line for his own sake. They've mostly numbed their Talon to the threat of pain, except in extreme quantities. The effectiveness of it is probably due to the relation of it as punishment in Talon's mind, rather than it still being traumatizing enough to make him avoid behaviors that cause it.

The Grandmaster considers Talon's back, and then crooks fingers and beckons Jason towards him. There's that same fraction of a second of hesitation, but Jason lets go of Talon's hair and slips back to approach the Grandmaster, kneeling again. Unnecessary, but he's probably being safe, reassuring the Grandmaster through non-verbal cues that he is as loyal as ever.

"Why don't you show Talon what __punishment__ is like, boy? You know the difference between that and pain, don't you?"

Jason's head doesn't quite jerk up, but he watches the secondary Talon's gaze snap upwards, surprise clear for just a second before it's shuttered away. "Yes, Grandmaster," is the easy answer, as Jason takes the whip being offered to him and rises back to his feet. He lets it uncoil, turns away a bit to do the same testing snap the Grandmaster did into thin air. A louder crack this time; more power.

"Go on then, boy," the Grandmaster orders, stepping away to get out of the range of that long, dangerous whip.

Jason turns back to Talon, moving back a couple steps until he's at the right range for the whip. "How many, Grandmaster?"

The Grandmaster stands near the head of the table, clearly angling himself to get a good view of both of their Talons. "Until I tell you to __stop__. Begin."

That answer surprises Jason too, but that's only revealed in that same micro-expression that he doubts anyone else is practiced enough to read. __Maybe__ the Grandmaster, but certainly none of the rest of these idiots. Then Jason takes in a shallow breath, flicks the whip and then winds and __strikes__. It cracks across Talon's back with the __snap__ so commonly associated with whips this long, leaving a long stripe of red that looks terribly painful, but nothing worse. Yet. Talon doesn't make a sound, though the muscles in his back flinch tight for a second.

Jason's gaze flicks to the Grandmaster for half a second, and since he's more watching Jason than the effect on Talon he sees the way that Jason's clearly waiting for some kind of order. Harder, or to pause, or some other correction. Nothing comes, and Jason's face sets into the hard, calculating expression that he knows is Jason's __actual__ face, when he's not playing to anyone or pretending to be something that he's not.

The next strike is harder, draws a thin line of blood in the middle of the red stripe, and Jason stops waiting for orders. The whip isn't as quick a weapon as something smaller, so the blows are spaced out as Jason pulls the whip back between each of them, but that gives a sort of rhythmic pattern to the beating, a moment of anticipation before the next __snap__ of the leather. He watches Jason's expression, watches the way it tightens as the beating continues, until it slides smoothly into a steel mask that blocks all of that off. Talon is making sounds now, little gasps and grunts at each impact; it must be agonizing, for Talon to be surrendering even that much.

Talon is conditioned to accept anything done to him, and to work and function through pain that would cripple any normal person. The fact that he's betraying that he's in pain means that it's serious; Talon doesn't play to an audience the way that Jason would, so his reactions are real.

Eventually Jason pauses, breathing hard, and swaps the whip to his other hand. It's a long few moments of silence as Jason readjusts position, accompanied by a glance up towards the Grandmaster that could just as easily be seeing if that's alright as seeing if the Grandmaster's going to stop this. Whatever it is, no order comes. Jason tests his other arm with a crack of the whip into the air, flicking blood across the carpet, and then goes back to striking at Talon's back.

The pause seems to have cracked Talon slightly, or perhaps Jason hits harder with his left arm, because he gives a small cry four strikes in, and then can't seem to stop it. Talon's fingers dig into the table, head pressing into it, back arching down in a clearly automatic attempt to shift away from the source of pain. Still, Talon doesn't actually move, doesn't try to escape. Despite the pain, Talon is still obedient.

He glances to the Grandmaster, but the older man is unreadable. Observing but not reacting, and that actually… It worries him, just a bit. Surely, the Grandmaster wouldn't really, truly cripple their Talon. Not without a backup in place, and Jason only sort of counts as that. Jason hasn't been in training long enough to be their sole Talon, has he?

Jason's breath is coming hard from the exertion, and he can see the faintly wild edge making it into Jason's eyes, that same slight over-wide look that betrayed his earlier shock. Talon is crying out with every blow, back a road map of sliced open lines and the blood coming from them. It's sliding down Talon's sides in small drops, wetting the table. Jason's gaze is a bit hazed, but only in the sort of way that someone staring at something for a long time might look, and it's not bad enough that anyone but him and the Grandmaster might notice it. Still, that's more obvious than anything else that Jason's given during all of this.

The expected sense of victory is tainted with a thread of unease, of worry. Yes, Jason is affected, but this is a harsher punishment than he can condone. It's not that Talon doesn't need to be punished — refusing a Court member is a grave offense — but this is their own fault; Talon shouldn't be this badly hurt just for falling to behavioral patterns that they all but locked him into.

Not that he can say any of this aloud.

Talon's voice breaks at the next cry, dying into a broken keen of pain, fingernails digging in hard enough he thinks they might have actually scratched the table. Jason flinches, glances up at the Grandmaster, but doesn't stop.

It isn't until Talon's noises crack, sliding high and then fading away entirely to leave only silence underneath the crack of the whip that the Grandmaster raises a hand. Jason instantly jerks the whip off course, snapping it off to the side instead of letting it hit again. Talon's still conscious, the press of his fingers to the table proof enough of that, along with the rapid rise and fall of his back as he takes ragged breaths. The Grandmaster finally moves, moving forward around the table to Talon's side. Jason is standing still apart from his elevated breathing, whip dangling at his side, gaze darting between Talon and the Grandmaster.

The Grandmaster reaches in, grabs a handful of Talon's hair and drags him into an arch. Talon __keens__ again, expression betraying the agony he's in, eyes screwed shut and teeth bared. He fights the urge to clench his own teeth in reaction. This is too extreme of a punishment; Talon will be useless for at least a few weeks, if not longer.

"You are __nothing__ ," the Grandmaster nearly hisses. "You are a weapon to be used in service of the Court. You are replaceable. __He__ is replaceable. The only worth either of you have is what __we__ give you."

Jason jerks out of the way as the Grandmaster flings Talon back. He rolls once before coming to lie halfway on his stomach, mouth open but no sound coming out, yellow eyes open wide and shocked but the pupils shrunk to pinpricks. Talon's visibly shivering, little shudders that slide down his arms and back, but still no sound comes out apart from the faintly ragged rasp of his breathing.

"We're done," the Grandmaster says, and Jason's fingers uncurl from the whip like it burns, dropping it to the floor. There's a moment of silence where the Grandmaster looks over at Jason, and then the Grandmaster snaps fingers, points at the floor at his feet, and says, "Here, boy."

Jason's hesitation is more noticeable this time, but still it's barely a moment before the secondary Talon is moving forward, dropping to his knees in front of the Grandmaster. Fingers comb his hair back, then lower to press beneath his jaw, lifting Jason's head. The Grandmaster leans down a fraction, slides fingers back into Jason's hair and gets a decent grip on it.

Then the Grandmaster yanks Jason higher, arching his throat, and Jason's teeth grit for a moment but there's no struggle. "The two of you are clearly a bad influence on each other; you'll be separated."

Jason's expression is dangerously bare for a moment; shock all too visible. "Grandmas—”

The backhand is hard enough to knock Jason to the floor, and more than enough to cut him off.

"Do __not__ talk back to me, boy. The only reason you're not on that table next is that you have a job to do." The Grandmaster reaches down, grabs Jason's hair and wrenches him up to his feet before letting go. "With me. __Now__. We clearly have a few flaws to iron out of __you__ as well."

He sees his opportunity, and speaks up from his position against the wall. "I'll handle the cleanup, Grandmaster," he volunteers.

Jason's gaze snaps to him — wide, almost __wild__ , these __idiots__ have pushed them both too far — for a second, and he thanks whatever fates may be out there that it means that Jason's facing away from the Grandmaster for a moment and that the tiny flicker of relief in his gaze isn't visible.

The Grandmaster nods, and then snaps his fingers and calls Jason to heel, circling around Talon's body and towards the door. Jason follows, and then after a moment both of the last two Court members go as well. The sadist has a small bounce to his step, and he finds himself sneering behind his mask, safe in the knowledge that everyone who could read his disgust is already gone.

Once they're gone he pushes off the wall, moving over to sink down in front of Talon. Talon's eyes are hazed now, head pressed to the floor, something strangely shattered on his face.

"Talon," he murmurs. It takes a long couple of seconds for Talon to look up at him, and then that gaze flicks down and back up, as if trying to show submission. As if he needs more than the fact that Talon probably couldn't manage to crawl further than the door in this condition. "It's alright, Talon," he whispers, quiet enough that he's sure that the cameras in here won't pick him up. "I'll make sure you're seen to."

Talon breathes shallowly, head twitching in what he's pretty sure is a nod. Then Talon shakes a little harder, mouth opening, and he guesses at what's about to be said and quickly cuts him off.

"You can't do anything for him right now. I'll check on Jason for you when there's a chance, until then you need to focus on your own recovery. The Grandmaster won't be satisfied with a simple beating if you do something like this again; you need to be more careful."

Talon looks surprised, staring up at him, but then there's sharp relief flitting across that shattered expression and the other man gives a slightly stronger nod. It's __his__ turn to be surprised when Talon's mouth parts again, and their trained killer breathes, "Thank you, Master," into the carpet. His voice is strained, weak, but still clear enough.

Only the cameras stop him from reaching out and brushing that black hair back from Talon's eyes. "Lie still, Talon. I'll fetch servants to move you."


	10. Chapter 10

He loses consciousness somewhere between two Court servants pulling him onto a stretcher and making it down to the actual medical area. By the time he's semi-conscious again, he's lying on his stomach on the familiar metal surface of one of the treatment tables. They must have given him something, because the world is fuzzy around the edges in a very different way than simple pain ever manages. Given that pain is consuming a good portion of what mind has come back to him, he doubts it was any higher kind of painkillers. Sedatives, probably; he knows that sometimes when he's very out of it, the Court servants have problems with him striking out at them. They prefer to keep him under when he's badly injured and they're trying to treat him.

He keeps his eyes closed until he's managed to even out the pattern of his breath, and then carefully slides them open. His vision isn't entirely clear, but it's enough for him to see that there's someone sitting in a steel chair beside him. Small, black hair, and a Court mask. It takes his mind a moment to connect that this is a familiar Court member. The one that he originally snapped at back when Jason was beaten the first time, and the same one to kneel down by him this time and promise to make sure he was seen to.

And to promise that he'd check on _Jason_.

He thought— He thought it was the right thing. He just wanted to stop Jason from being hurt again when there was no _reason_ for it. He expected to get punished himself, but that was better. He can handle it better than Jason, and then it would be— it would be for something deserved. He _did_ something to deserve this. But now Jason is— Gone. _Separated_ from him. What has he done?

The Court member has some book open on his lap, but only a couple moments go by before he’s murmuring, “Awake again, Talon?”

He swallows, carefully tests what shape his back is in by shifting, and immediately stills again. _Fire_ burns across his skin, lighting up his nerves with pain, and he gasps for air underneath the sudden onslaught, eyes shutting for a moment as he tries to process any of that. He’s been beaten this badly before, but not for a long time, not since some of his earliest days. Not even the beating he got for failing his test with Jason was this bad.

“Lie still,” the Court member admonishes, though there’s an edge of something almost like concern. “The doctors have advised against any movement for at least a couple days, even for you. You lost quite a bit of blood, and any strenuous movement might tear your stitches.”

“Sorry, Master,” he manages to breathe.

“Don’t apologize to me,” is the immediate order. “You’ve done nothing to me.”

He gets his eyes open again, wincing at both the effort and the bright, sterile lights shining down on him. They sting his eyes; he’s better suited for darkness. “I inconvenienced you, Master.”

“Why? By making me still be here?” The Court member flips to the next page, voice lowering a touch. “It’s my choice to still be here, Talon. If anyone inconvenienced me, I did it to myself. After all, I volunteered to make sure you were seen to, didn’t I?”

Which doesn’t make sense (why would any of the Court linger to make sure he recovered from a punishment he earned?) but it’s not his place to question. He’s earned enough punishment today, and he’s not interested in adding any more to his total. His Sir is already going to add onto what’s been done to him, and then there will be weeks of more personal training afterwards, to reeducate him. Wanting to know why this Court member is still here instead of gone, like every other one that’s ever been stuck with the task of seeing him to the doctors, isn’t worth it.

The Court member closes the book, head tilting to study him more openly. He lowers his gaze, wishing he wouldn’t be violating other orders by trying to rise to get on his knees instead. He doesn’t have any other way to show his obedience but keeping his gaze lowered, and that doesn’t feel like enough right now. Not with how he stepped out of line earlier.

“Do you have something to ask, Talon?”

His gaze snaps up again, and then he drops it, avoids the blank black eyes of the mask. “It’s not my place to question, Master.”

The Court member watches him for several long moments where he stays as still as he’s capable, breathing shallow to minimize how his chest expands and contracts. Until the Court member murmurs, “I’m not going to hurt you, Talon. Ask your questions; there won’t be any punishment.”

He cautiously looks up, trying to use some of what Jason's taught him, trying to figure out if the Court member is testing or baiting him, just waiting for him to do what he knows he's not supposed to. When he can't find anything, he weighs knowing what he wants to against the risk of more pain, against the risk of getting himself or _Jason_ into even more trouble. Even more than the motivations of this Court member, he wants to know if Jason is going to be alright. _Jason_ didn't step out of line, not like he did, but there must have been something or they wouldn't have been separated. Knowing that _has_ to be worth whatever pain it might earn him.

"Did you mean what you said, Master?" he asks, keeping vague just in case it does backfire. The less pointed he is, the less likely he is to be seen as insubordinate.

The Court member watches him, head tilting again, and then gives a small nod. His voice comes out low, just barely above a whisper. "I did. When I get a chance, I'll check to see if Jason is alright." His slight confusion over how quietly the Court member is speaking must show, because there's an equally quiet laugh. "Very few places within the Court's base are without surveillance, but it's made for you, not me. If I speak quietly, I'm inaudible, and no one will be reading my lips with this on." That's accompanied by a flick of one pale, thin-fingered hand towards the white, owl-like mask covering the Court member's face.

It makes sense, but it also doesn't. If the Court member is avoiding being caught saying what he is, that implies it's… That means that the Court member thinks that what he's saying would be criticized, it implies that the Court member thinks that what he's saying is _dangerous_ if heard by the wrong ears. What Court member would _risk_ something, _anything_ , to help him?

He turns his head a bit, hiding his mouth against the table and deliberately not looking at where he knows one of the cameras for this room is. "You know his name," he says, as the Court member hums approval and opens the book again.

"I do."

That sits in the air for a moment, before he asks, "How?"

"I _asked_ ," the Court member says, sounding slightly amused. "Jason and I have talked before, once. I asked for him after the three of us had that run in in the corridor the night that _idiot_ beat him." __

_Asked_ for him? A little thread of something stirs in his chest, something almost angry.

"Easy, Talon," the Court member murmurs. "I only wanted to talk, and I didn't touch your partner in any way." The feeling in his chest eases, and the Court member gives a small shake of his head. "Be careful about that possessiveness, Talon. If anyone else picks up on it, you'll both be in trouble. From now on, you'll need to behave like Jason doesn't mean anything to you. He'll be doing the same, trust me. You both gave away too much tonight."

It takes him a few moments to dissect that, before he can answer, "I didn't see him give anything away.” He adds, “Master," belatedly, as it occurs to him that he hasn't been saying it.

"You don't have to call me that," the Court member tells him, "not while it's just the two of us. You were face down on a table for most of it; you wouldn't have seen anything." Another page is turned. "It was small things; minor hesitations, bits of expression. I don't believe anyone but the Grandmaster and I noticed anything."

“Is that better or worse?”

“Well, as far as I know Jason isn’t dead yet, so the answer is ‘better.’ If he’d been as blatantly disobedient as you, he would have been put down on the spot.” The Court member taps one finger against the book. “Whatever the Grandmaster wants you to believe, you’re important, Talon. Jason isn’t trained enough to take your place, there’s no other child in training, and the Court's become too reliant on having a Talon to strong-arm all their problems away. It would be a hard couple of years for the Court if you were put down, at minimum. Assuming that your death didn't cause Jason to rebel in the same way, because if it did it would probably be closer to half a decade, if not more."

"Why—?" He cuts himself off, swallows the question down because even with the haze to his mind, he knows there's a difference between asking questions, and having them be about the Court's decisions. Clarification is not the same as questioning.

“Ask,” the Court member orders.

He pushes away the nerves in his chest, shielding himself under the fact that he can’t be held completely responsible when he was ordered to speak, instead of holding his tongue. This Court member _did_ say he wouldn’t be punished for his questions, though that doesn’t necessarily mean anything; the Court tends to change their minds about what they’ve said before, or sometimes never mean it in the first place.

“Why are you telling me any of this, Master? This… doesn’t sound like things I should know.” He pauses for a moment, and then corrects, “That the Court would want me to know.”

“The Court’s comprised of many people,” he’s reminded, before the other man flips another page of the book, “and I happen to want you to know more than most of the others. My interests don’t align with the Grandmaster’s as completely as he’d like, true, but he doesn’t know that yet.”

He stills, lungs freezing in his chest for a moment before he manages to breathe, “That sounds like treason.”

The Court member makes a noncommittal sound. “No two Court members want precisely the same thing, Talon, and very few are as blindly devoted to the Court’s direction as they appear. As long as I’m not acting on it, a little disagreement isn’t unusual enough to be treason.”

He swallows, wanting to get up, to move, to dispel some of the wary energy starting to buzz through his veins. Even if it wouldn’t be agony to try to stand, he’s been ordered to stay down. He’s not sure this particular Court member would actually punish him for disobeying — he doesn’t like not being sure about the people that hold so much power over his life — but it’s not something he should do and he at least _is_ sure of that. He shouldn’t do things he knows are wrong, even if it’s tempting; he’s been caught before and it’s rarely worth it in the long run.

Shouldn’t other people under the command of the Grandmaster work the same way? Why wouldn’t everyone avoid doing what they know will get them punished if they’re caught, especially with the Grandmaster in control of those punishments? He’s been sent to kill unmasked Court members before; no one is immune to the Grandmaster’s orders. Even if it’s not death, there have to be other ways to punish a Court member, don’t there? Do they get whipped too, but privately? Out of sight of anyone else? He’s never seen a Court member that moved like they were in pain.

He considers his words for a long few moments, watching the Court member from the one eye he can with his face angled down into the table, before asking, “Why would you risk punishment?”

The Court member doesn’t answer for another few seconds, and then quietly says, “Well, I suppose I think the reward is worth the risk. We’ve both thought that before, haven’t we, Talon?”

And _Jason_ is back at the front of his mind. Soft blue-green eyes, the curl of a small smile, and the warmth of his skin, all slipping through his head and leaving him _aching_ more than physically, the sensation sitting in the center of his chest despite the lack of injury to go with it. Distantly, he remembers this feeling. Remembers the sound of a rope snapping with the kind of vivid clarity he hasn’t in years, remembers the numbness and the tears and that same aching _hollow_ in his chest from the beginning of his training. Grief, loss; words he knows but had forgotten the feeling of. He hasn’t had anything to lose in a very long time.

“Yes,” he answers, belatedly, and he _knows_ it, somewhere deep beneath his skin and bones. He would risk punishment or death itself to make sure Jason’s alright, and to have him back. He’s not willing to go back to the blank, endless obedience of his life before Jason was introduced to him; he’s not sure he could even if he tried. Or if the Court tried to _make_ him.

He’s different now, no matter how disapproved of that is. No matter how dangerous it is.

“So you know,” the Court member murmurs, “you mean just as much to him as he does to you.”

His breath catches, and he _almost_ turns his head to look more directly at the Court member before remembering that he’s avoiding cameras. “How could you know that?”

The Court member gives a soft laugh. “Jason’s a very accomplished liar, but I’ve been reading people my whole life.” He wants to protest that Jason’s _not_ a liar, he can’t be when deception and manipulation is what the Court wants from him, but the Court member is already speaking again. “At first I saw it on him, and then when I asked he confirmed it. It would be my guess that he cares for you more than anything else in his life, just like you do him.”

The hollowness in his chest still aches, but his breath seems to come a fraction easier at the information, and he can’t help closing his eyes and just _lingering_ in that knowledge for a moment. Lingering in the idea that Jason might feel this same loss at their separation, that Jason might feel the same warmth and ease he does in their moments alone, or the same stirrings of desire. He’s always been uncertain that Jason was actually interested and wasn’t just reacting to advances automatically, so he’d tried his best not to ever push that boundary, but if Jason really _is_ interested…

Maybe that single kiss can be repeated. Maybe there can be more.

But that can’t happen while they’re separated.

“Master?” he asks, opening his eyes again. “Can I ask—” A small shiver slides down his back, shakes him deep into his bones because this is so _completely_ against everything that he’s been taught and trained to be. But he needs Jason _back_ so he swallows and fights past the conditioning trying to keep him silent. “Can I ask a favor?”

The Court member is silent for a moment, still, and it reads to him as surprise. “A favor?” is repeated, quieter, and then there’s another pause, one long finger tapping at the book. “Alright,” the Court member eventually says. “Ask, Talon.”

Having permission makes it easier, and the knot in his throat eases as he breathes in, thinking about what he wants and trying to find the right words to say it. Words… aren’t his specialty. Jason’s always been better with them, was always the one to sway people and get them to do what he wanted; the Court never trained him to do anything remotely like that.

He configures the request in his head, opens his mouth. “I—”

There are footsteps, and he snaps his mouth closed again, twisting his head enough to see the door. He recognizes the tread of booted feet, reads the _anger_ in the heavy step and fast pace, and his breath catches. His _Sir_.

He forces himself to breathe evenly, to shut away nerves and the worry of what his Sir will do to him for how badly he stepped out of line. He knew this was coming, but knowing it’s coming doesn’t let him prepare. He’s already in such bad condition; what more will his Sir do this time? What _can_ his Sir do without causing permanent damage or coming dangerously close to killing him?

Immediately his mind offers suggestions, ways he’s been taught to cause pain that don’t leave much lasting damage, and he shivers again. He almost tries to push up, to meet his Sir on his knees or at least sitting up, before his gaze slips across the Court member and he remembers the order to lie still.

He’s still debating which source to risk disobeying when his Sir sweeps in the open doorway, scowling, eyes dark with anger and he immediately wrenches his gaze down and goes as still as possible, trying to show any and all obedience he can without moving.

“ _You_ ,” Sir all but snarls. “How _dare_ you—”

“Excuse me,” the Court member intercedes, the book snapping shut with a sound loud enough to make him flinch.

His Sir turns, gaze falling down to the Court member as the smaller man stands, holding the book beneath one arm. “I— What are you doing down here, Master?”

“Reading,” the Court member answers dryly, “and waiting to pass ownership of Talon off to someone else. I did promise the Grandmaster I would make sure that he was seen to.”

Sir’s expression tightens. “Oh, he’ll be _seen_ to, Master. I swear by the time I’m done with him he’ll never step a toe out of line again.”

The Court member looks up at his Sir, apparently not in the least affected by the clear anger in the much taller man’s expression. His gaze _snaps_ up when the Court member says, “No, this was enough.”

His Sir looks equally taken aback. “What? Master, with all due respect—”

“That’s an _order_ ,” the Court member interrupts, voice sliding into something lower, something unforgiving. “I expect you to recondition Talon, but his punishment for this infraction is over. What he deserved he’s already endured, and the thing that caused the misbehavior has been removed from the equation, so all that’s needed is for you to run him through whatever tests you have and ensure that his conditioning remains effective. Once you’re sure I want him functioning as soon as possible; the Court has work it needs done.”

“As you wish, Master,” his Sir says, sounding reluctant but ultimately obedient.

The Court member turns, stepping up beside his table and reaching out to brush his hair back from his eyes. He lowers his gaze, until the Court member demands, “Look at me.” The black eyes of the mask don’t give him any clue about the Court member’s intentions, but he can read the double meaning when he’s told, “You’re the Court’s Talon, and you’ll behave or you’ll be disposed of. Am I understood?”

“Yes, Master,” he says, with as much strength as he can manage. It’s not much, but it’s better than the weak whisper he’s been speaking in since he regained consciousness.

The fingers leave his hair, and the Court member turns away as if he doesn’t matter, striding out of the room. His Sir watches, and then steps forward and up next to him. He isn’t foolish enough to meet his Sir’s eyes, not even when much larger fingers wrap around his neck and dig nails into his skin. He shivers, feeling the conditioned rush of submission loosen him, his vision hazing out a bit as he goes pliant underneath the grip of that hand.

“If you even _think_ about getting in the way of a member of the Court again, I’ll strip every bit of skin off your back and make you eat it. Is that clear, Talon?”

He shudders harder, enough that the pain steals his breath for a moment. “Yes, Sir,” he says, when he manages to breathe again.

The nails dig in harder, maybe enough to bruise. “Good. We have _work_ to do on you, Talon.”

* * *

The next time he sees Jason it’s a briefing, three months later and his first mission since his disobedience.

The only reason he’s been able to wait so long was because of the time he woke to that Court member slipping into his room, leaning down and breathing, _“He’s alive. He’s surviving,”_ into his ear. He doesn’t know how the Court member got away with visiting his room, but he was so grateful for the news that he didn’t bother questioning. Nothing bad happened, and he’s seen that specific member of the Court since then, so he has to assume that no one important noticed the visit.

Jason is standing behind the Grandmaster’s shoulder, still and tall, and doesn’t look at him when he enters the Grandmaster’s study to hear his mission. His partner has a black eye and visible bruises down his throat, before the high collar of the Talon uniform covers it. He glances at the injuries, but forces himself to look away and stay unaffected by them.

He’s never known Jason to be visibly injured before, especially not in a way that detracts from his appeal, but then he doesn’t know what kind of reconditioning Jason’s been subjected to. It’s safe to say it must be very different than his. Despite his best efforts, his Sir _was_ dissatisfied enough with his obedience to put him through several agonizing weeks of training, but he hasn’t heard anything about Jason. If his Sir was handling Jason’s punishment, or some kind of reconditioning, surely he’d know about it.

Jason’s gaze never rises from the floor, never deviates from the careful blankness, and he returns the favor. It’s not safe to show anything.

The second time is in passing, a moment where he’s been called up for display and is crossing through the lavish corridors. Jason is heading the other direction, dressed down in at-rest clothing, and in a flash he takes in the scattered bruises marring Jason’s skin, the slight inwards curl to those broad shoulders, and the stiff edge to his gait. He almost stops, almost responds to the worry in his chest that wonders what is _happening_ to his partner, before Jason’s closer hand flicks sharp enough to catch his attention. Sharp enough to tell him _no_. _Don’t_.

He walks by without giving more than that look, but he keeps wondering. Keeps _worrying_.

He forces himself to stay obedient, to give no sign that he cares for Jason at all, no matter how much he’s concerned. Jason taught him enough about how to hide things, and he puts all of it to use, sticking to that Court member’s advice. Stay obedient, or risk being disposed of.

By the time anything changes, the concern in his chest has grown to fill the void that his separation from Jason left him with. He worries, dwells on the various injuries he spots Jason with, and slowly there grows an undercurrent of _anger_. Jason is being _hurt_ , and he can’t imagine that it’s deserved. Jason never disobeyed, Jason stayed loyal, Jason is _good,_ and he’s being _hurt_ regardless. It shakes him, it makes his breath catch in the moments when he lets his thoughts stray, but he finds himself wanting to pay back the pain his partner is being subjected to, to _hurt_ the one responsible.

The Grandmaster.

He _never_ lets that thought exist in his head except when he’s alone and in the darkness of his room. Only then does he let himself think about gripping tight enough to leave vivid bruises, and how skin will _split_ underneath his claws and bloom dark blood instead. The sound of _screams_.

And then the Court member shows up in his room again.

He’s nearly asleep, the whole base is quiet and mostly empty, and the Court member slips in and to the side of his bed. He shifts up, bows his head — most Court members don’t like the way his eyes tend to glint in the darkness — before fingers slip under his chin and pull it back up. He obeys the silent command, bracing himself on one hand with his blanket pooling down near his waist, meeting the black pits that serve as eyes in that mask.

“Talon,” the Court member says, fingers steady beneath his chin. “I can take you to Jason, if you want.”

He stills, staring up at the roundness of that white mask. Yes, of _course_ he does, but… “Is this a test?” he breathes.

The Court member’s fingers slide out from under his chin, rising to grip the bottom of the mask. It comes up, and he _stares_ at the crystal blue eyes, at the _face_ of something he never dared to think had a face.

“No,” the Court member says, and he watches that mouth move, watches it actually _form_ the words instead of hearing it through the mask. “My name is Tim. The cameras are disabled, the Grandmaster and the trainer are both gone; no one will know.”

The Court member— _Tim_ pulls the mask back down, and offers him a hand.

“Come with me, Talon.”


	11. Chapter 11

He's waiting in the Grandmaster's office when the door opens, hours ahead of when he expects his master to come back. He knows better than to look up, knows better than to pull against the collar and the chain binding him to the wall. Something he could easily get out of, if he chose to, and that's the _point_. He could unbuckle the collar, get up, and walk out of here at any point, but that would mark him as the useless, disobedient servant that he's trying to prove he's _not_.

He's fought _so hard_ , to try and prove that he's as capable and loyal as he ever was. He takes whatever the Grandmaster wants to do to him, tries to fit himself to the man's desires as best he can, and accept whatever discipline and lessons the Grandmaster has the patience to give him.

He knows that he's not perfect, and he knows that he's not the ideal of a pleasure servant anymore and hasn't been for a long time, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't remember his training. He's _good_. He never meant to let himself become anything else, never meant to let Talon — the name still makes him _ache,_ makes him remember a bloody back and the feel of a whip in his hand — corrupt his training or his mind. He never meant to hesitate for even the fractions of a second that he did, never meant to let it show that he didn't like being the one to beat Talon. Personal feelings are irrelevant and they should never have been allowed to change him.

He is a _servant of the Court_. He will always be a servant of the Court.

But during this time under the personal care of the Grandmaster — underneath harsh hands and boots and the sneering words that remind him how very _disposable_ he is — he's also realized that there is a part of him that is tied to Talon, and that nothing the Grandmaster has done has even started to threaten that. He _wants_ to be loyal, of course he does, but he was assigned to be Talon's partner and that came with expectations. He's not entirely sure how it's _his_ fault that he grew loyal to the person _they_ placed as his secondary master, especially since every other member of the Court demanded that he do whatever Talon required of him. Wasn't he _supposed_ to form some level of attachment for Talon?

Or did none of them consider that? Was this the Court's failing for not expecting that he'd be loyal to Talon? (He was never going to let that make him disobedient to the Court; didn't they _know_ that?)

The footsteps that enter the room are softer than the Grandmaster's confident stride; someone used to moving quietly. He keeps his gaze trained on the polished wood, keeps his hands loose against his thighs as whoever it is draws closer, keeps his breath even as it can be with the collar a fraction too tight to breathe comfortably. Out of the edges of his vision he catches sight of dress shoes, of black pants, and clarifies it as a man. A Court member.

The man moves forward, sinks down to kneel just in front of him. He stays still until the man reaches out and touches the bottom of his chin, tilting his head up, and he recognizes the pale, thin-fingered hand. Tim. He hesitates, but lets his gaze rise to the edge of that white mask, to confirm the longer black hair. Tim's hand slides across his cheek, fingers drifting over the bruise decorating his right cheekbone; discipline for not answering a question as quickly as he should have. Then down, to the ring of bruises partially hidden by the collar; those are from serving one of the other Inner Court, and he needed the reminder to never struggle, no matter what a Court member wants to do to him. He can still speak and perform; that's good enough.

"Jason," Tim murmurs, and he can't help shivering. "Oh, what have those idiots done to you? Conditioning should be left to the trainers; it's a _precise_ art."

Deft fingers slide back, unbuckling his collar and letting it fall back to the wall. He wants to protest, to tell Tim that the collar is supposed to stay, that _he's_ supposed to stay unless the Court has some direct need of him, but the words freeze in his throat. He's _not_ supposed to ever even vaguely hint that he's not perfectly content with whatever a Court member wants from him. If Tim wants his collar off, so be it. His only purpose is to serve and be used.

"Jason, look at me." He lets his gaze rise that last bit, watches impassively as Tim pulls the mask off to bare his face. "The cameras are disabled, and the Grandmaster is gone," Tim murmurs, and he almost flinches before Tim is continuing. "I can take you to see Talon, if you come with me."

His breath catches, part of his heart _soaring_ and the rest shrinking back in fear. "I'm not supposed to leave the room, Master," he breathes, fighting the desire to lower his gaze again. "Talon means nothing to me."

"Well, we both know that's not true." Tim gets to his feet, offering a hand. "Come with me, Jason. If it makes it easier, that's an order. I'll make sure that they know that I ordered you to leave the room, if anyone miraculously discovers this occurred. Not that they will. I am offering you a _break_ ; come with me."

He shivers, imagines the _pain_ and the anger that will fall on him if the Grandmaster finds out he disobeyed, but then he feels a little flicker of will curl in his chest like a flame. He studies Tim's face blatantly, obviously, for the first time in too many months, reading as much as he can and finding no hint of deception. Tim has kept his secrets before, knows more about him and Talon than anyone else, _including_ the Grandmaster. He knows that Tim was the one to make sure that Talon was seen to after their last true time together, and he knows that Talon's been put through some reconditioning but that he's still _alive_ , has seen from encountering him in corridors and at parties that he still cares.

He knows that Tim can be trusted, at least with this.

He takes Tim's hand, shifting to stand and then almost falling over when his right leg cramps, stiff and sore from kneeling for so long. He flails out, catching himself on his other hand, as Tim gives a small gasp. It takes gritting his teeth, and pressing his weight down on his other leg, but he gets himself to standing. It _hurts_ , and his legs threaten to lock beneath him, but he breathes through it and forces himself to swallow the pain away. He's faced much worse before, even recently.

"Can you walk?" Tim asks bluntly, still holding his hand.

"Yes, Master," he breathes through his teeth.

"Good." Tim lets go of him and pulls the mask back down. "Keep your eyes down and keep pace with me. There shouldn't be anyone in the corridors, but if there is we need to go unremarked upon."

He obeys, forcing himself to walk as normally as he can manage, following Tim out of the Grandmaster's office and down through the Court's base. After the first few minutes it gets easier to walk, as the muscles in his legs remember what it feels like to move. He's still sore, and in a lot more places than just his legs, but it's nothing that he can't handle. Nothing that he hasn't already handled.

They don't pass anyone in the corridors, as Tim predicted, and he recognizes the path they're on, recognizes it when he's led directly to his old service room. Tim steps back outside the door, ordering, "Wait here; I'll retrieve Talon."

He's not given an opportunity to protest, even if he was going to. Tim closes the door, shutting him inside, and is gone.

He hasn't been in this room for several months now — the Grandmaster has his own rooms, his own bed and tools — but it looks just as he remembers. Someone's been keeping it clean, as they did back when he was still using it, and the bed looks freshly made, everything very precisely in its place. He slips around the room for something to do, checking all the containers to make sure that the tools and supplies within are full, then back around to check furniture, to make sure that everything has been maintained. He's had enough of sitting still recently, and has _no_ desire to do anymore of it. If he has time to move his legs, to ease out stiff muscles, to do anything but sit and kneel and _wait_ , he's going to.

When he runs out of things to check he falls into a series of stretches and light warm ups, trying to ease out the knots and stiffness that's gathered in his muscles, since he hasn't been given time to properly maintain himself. Or clean himself each morning. He wishes that he could fix that — all the supplies are in the bathroom included in his service room — but that's one thing he couldn't hide. He's clean _enough_ , but after so long being so very meticulous about his appearance, as was expected, it grates on him to be anything less. God, if his Sir could see him now.

But it's not his _fault_. He isn't given time; not to stay flexible, not to stay in shape, not to be _clean_. He _can't_ be expected to be as good as he was if he's not _allowed_ to be.

He knows his place, he _does_. He knows his purpose. He was trained most of his life to serve, to be what the Court wants, to please them however they wanted, no matter what. It wasn't his fault that he grew too much to be solely that anymore, and it wasn't his decision to be paired with Talon, even before that. The _Court_ made him Talon's. The Grandmaster did. No one ever told him that he wasn't allowed to give _Talon_ what he wanted, or that he wasn't allowed to enjoy it himself. It _wasn't his fault_.

Now the Grandmaster keeps him close, keeps him restrained by chains and orders, uses him like a _thing_. How can the Grandmaster say that he's being 'fixed,' that he's being reminded of what he was taught to do, but not let him do anything he's actually been trained to? Every time he's let one of his masks slip onto his face for even a moment, _every_ time he's tried to be as warm and welcoming as he was taught to, or play to any of their desire to see him scared, or in pleasure, he's hurt for it. _Punished_ for it.

All he wants is to be allowed to _do_ what he was trained to. He feels like he's wasting away, like he's back in his earliest stages of training and everything that he does is wrong, except this time he _knows_ he's doing what he's supposed to. Why is the Grandmaster doing that to him? Why is he being punished for what they taught him to do?

The door opens and he spins to meet it.

Tim slips in first, and then Talon — _Talon_ — is a step behind, yellow eyes already searching the room before he's even all the way in. He can't help the small noise that tears itself from his throat, and then Talon focuses on him and is moving. He steps forwards but somehow Talon is already there, pressing close, hands gripping his arms then rising to his neck, his face. He reaches forward, wraps his arms around Talon and just hangs on, curling his fingers into the black shirt beneath them.

" _Jason_ ," Talon breathes, and it sounds desperate, sounds relieved and worried all at once.

"Talon," he whispers back, and all at once hates how rough his voice sounds, hates the damage to his throat, hates the bruises on his face and his neck.

"Are you alright?" Talon asks, hands exploring his skin, lingering over the bruises but barely even actually touching them with how precisely careful those fingers are.

He means to say that he is, that he can survive this, that he's taken worse and he can handle anything the Court does to him. He opens his mouth, but the words won't come. He curls his fingers tighter into Talon's shirt, feels his breath catch painfully in his throat, and just shakes his head.

Talon makes a low, unhappy sound, then starts to pull him over to the bed. He lets it happen, lets Talon pull him down onto the bed and all but curl around him, one hand pushing his shirt up as Talon shifts around him, no doubt examining the other bruises, and the fact that he knows he's not as perfectly in shape as he was back when he was Talon's partner. He just rests his head against Talon's chest, refusing to give up his grip on the fabric between his fingers. Talon is making small, comforting noises in the back of his throat, and he forces himself to breathe in, to see past the old memories of Talon doing this for him before, back when he was panicking about being removed from service.

"It's just bruises," he manages to say. "I'll heal."

Talon pulls his head back, presses their foreheads together. "What's wrong?"

He opens his eyes, meets the yellow gaze that he used to find so bizarrely fascinating, before he knew it so well. "They—” He swallows, tries to figure out how to explain what's wrong with this whole thing. He's a servant of the Court, it _shouldn't_ be wrong. They can do whatever they want and he just— he just—

"He won't let me _serve_ ," is what comes out. "I'm trying — I'm _trying —_ but he won't let me." He's shaking, and Talon makes another unhappy sound, pressing closer to him. "I know my place, I know what I am, I know my purpose. I just— I just want to do what I was trained to. I just want to give them what they _want_. Why won't they _let_ me?"

Talon hisses through his teeth, then looks sharply up, breaking the contact of their foreheads but not releasing him. He turns his head, looking up to find Tim looking down at them, mask off and expression distantly angry. Not at them; he can still read expressions well enough to know that much.

"The Grandmaster is trying to condition you," Tim says quietly. "Poorly. He wants to ensure that you don't use any of your training to fool Court members."

He stares, confused and desperate, but it's Talon that hisses, "That's what he _does_. That's what he was _taught_."

"Which is why it's a poor attempt," Tim says, carefully sitting down at the edge of the bed, at his back. "Conditioning should be left to the people trained in it; what people think will get them results often doesn't. The only thing the Grandmaster is succeeding in doing is undermining all the rest of your training, much as he did when he let that sadist beat you."

He shakes his head, closing his eyes for a moment. "I didn't— I don't care about _pain_."

"Not yours," Tim corrects quietly. "Talon's conditioning. The two of you were trained very differently, you were taught different things. Honestly, if anyone had bothered to consider it, you shouldn't have been paired together at all. It's a remarkably _terrible_ idea to give someone only one person in the world that treats them as an equal, and then expect them not to become attached to that person. The Grandmaster is punishing you both for something that was never your fault to begin with."

The breath rushes out of him, and he's aware of Talon looking at him but Tim's words are expanding his lungs again, letting him breathe easy for the first time in what feels like forever. He knew, of _course_ he knew, but it's so different to hear it from the mouth of a Court member. Suddenly his thoughts are more than just weakness, they're more than just betrayal and disobedience. He's _right_.

"I was right," he breathes, tilting his head up so he can give a sharp little laugh. "I was _right_."

"Jason?" Talon murmurs, fingers careful against his cheek.

He lets his fingers uncurl from Talon's shirt, lowers his head and then slides his fingers through Talon's hair. He exhales, smiles and _feels_ it, and then pulls Talon into a kiss. Talon gives a small gasp, but doesn't pull away from him, doesn't even twitch backwards or give any of those other tiny signs he's learned to pick up on that says he doesn't want this. He strokes his fingers through Talon's hair, feels the returning touch to his own and smiles into the kiss, that knowledge still singing through his head.

This is _natural_. It should have been expected. It's _not their fault._

He pulls back after a minute, rubbing his nose against Talon's and opening his eyes, just so he can get a look at Talon, who still looks caught in the kiss. Eyes closed, mouth slightly parted, calm in a way that Talon rarely is when it's not just the two of them. Remembering that, he turns and reaches out, pulling free of Talon's loose grip in his hair. Tim looks a little surprised, but doesn't stop him from getting a gentle grip around the back of his neck and pulling him down. He braces his other arm to push up a bit, closing his eyes to kiss Tim too, to brush their lips together.

Tim's gasp is more noticeable than Talon's, and he keeps this shorter, keeps it gentle before he lets the contact break. "Thank you," he breathes, flicking his eyes open to look up at Tim's wide gaze. " _Thank you_."

"I—” Tim gives a small cough, pulls back with a small flush on his cheeks. "You're welcome. You don't have to—” Tim draws back, flushing a little bit harder. "Not that I don't— I mean you're both very…”

He smiles, slow and amused, and lowers his hand to lightly touch Tim's shoulder, before relaxing back onto the bed. "I know. It's—”

"How you show gratitude," Tim finishes, with a sharp exhale and a nod. "Yes, I— I remember that from when I was researching the patterns of training used to create servants of the Court. I've never _indulged_ but I mean, I know a lot about it because I was _fascinated_ and—”

He leans a bit to the side, glancing over at Talon — who has one raised eyebrow, and looks just a bit possessive — and murmuring, "You know, he's kind of cute." Talon gives another little unhappy sound, eyes narrowing a bit. "Relax, Talon. I'm not interested in anyone but you. Never have been."

"Good," Talon breathes back, leaning in and kissing him again. Tim's babble cuts off, and he gives a small laugh into the kiss, before he turns and looks up at their Court member.

"How long do we have?" he asks.

Tim starts, then reaches into his suit and retrieves a phone. "A little over two hours. I'll set an alarm and be in the bathroom to give you two privacy. You don't need my permission, but I want to make it clear anyway, do whatever you want to. Just be careful if you do anything that might mark, so none of us get caught."

Talon nods, and then shifts up a bit and says, "Thank you, Master."

"You don't have to call me that," Tim corrects, as he gets off the bed.

"I know," Talon says, and Tim actually looks surprised for another moment. He smiles, maybe knows better than even the kid genius of a Court member exactly how important it is that Talon is willing to call him that. Especially right now, with the permission not to and how far Talon has slipped from his loyalty to the Court.

"You're welcome," Tim repeats, head bowing a bit, and then heads off to the bathroom.

He watches Tim go, and then turns back to Talon, rolling towards him and pressing close. "So," he starts, as the door shuts, "two hours. What do you want to do, Talon?"

Talon's mouth curves in a faint smile, hands rising to slide across his cheeks. Until they pass over the bruise, and then the smiles vanishes into a small flicker of bared teeth, eyes narrowing a bit. Those fingers slide over his bruise, then down to map the ones around his throat. "I want… I want to make sure you're alright. I want to remember every single one of these bruises."

He pauses, and then quietly asks, "Why?"

Talon's gaze hardens, lingering down on his throat. "So I can pay them back," Talon almost hisses, fingers gentle across his skin but words _vicious_.

He inhales, eyes widening, and then reaches up and takes Talon's hand, pulling it away from his bruises. "Woah, Talon, _no_. That'll get us both killed; you know it will. I wouldn't care if they were beating me every night, alright? It's just pain. It doesn't matter to me, _that's_ how I was trained, okay?"

Talon's gaze flickers down, then rises and meets his. As quiet as him, Talon asks, "What if they were doing it to me?"

His breath catches, and for a moment he imagines that. Imagines Talon restrained, fingers around his throat, for no _reason_ other than the Court's pleasure. His breath comes out in a sharp exhale, and he slides his arm around Talon's waist, pulls him closer.

"It's different," he defends. "I was trained to please, Talon. You weren't. It's my purpose to let the Court do whatever they want to me; there's nothing wrong with that."

Talon is silent for a few moments, and then lowers his gaze and says, "Just because you're used to it, doesn't mean it's not wrong." Before he can process that, Talon's pulling his hand free and raising it to comb through his hair, pushing it back along his skull. "Even if it doesn't matter, the Grandmaster is punishing you for doing what the Court taught you to. It's not right. You can't tell me you believe that's right."

He swallows, really _tries_ , and then breathes, "No. I can't."

Another moment of silence, before Talon slides fingers down the line of his jaw. "You're being hurt; don't ask me not to be angry. You would be too."

He can't find an answer to that. It's _dangerous_ for Talon to be angry, especially to be having any thoughts about actually taking, what, revenge? But Talon's right. If it were Talon getting hurt, without a real reason for it, he'd be angry too. If the Grandmaster had completely denied Talon his purpose in life, was _punishing_ him for being exactly what they made him… His breath shortens, jaw clenching for a second. Yeah, alright; he'd be angry. He understands.

He gives a small laugh, closing his eyes for a moment. "That's a lot of words in a row for you," he comments.

Talon's fingers are still stroking the side of his face, and he opens his eyes in time to catch the slightly sad cast to Talon's expression. "I missed you," his partner breathes.

The smile comes unbidden, small and echoing that slight sadness. "I missed you too," he admits. "This is why they separated us, you know that, right?" Talon nods, but doesn't offer anything else. So he leans in and catches Talon in a soft kiss, before granting, "Alright, go ahead. Remember them."

Talon lingers for another few moments, before gently pulling him further onto the bed so he can be pressed down onto his back. Those deadly hands carefully ease his shirt up, and he lets Talon pull it up off his head and arms, before Talon returns to his mouth. He tangles his fingers in Talon's hair, until Talon pulls away, kneeling over his waist. Those yellow eyes slip down to his cheek, and then one hand rises, the back of Talon's hand fitting neatly against the bruise. He turns his head, remembers the swift backhand that caused it, before Talon's fingers are sliding lower, wrapping around his throat with incredibly careful pressure. Talon frowns, then raises the other hand and fits it around his throat as well, matching the bruising pattern.

His chest tightens as he realizes that Talon's matching bruises to the acts that caused them, and he lets his head fall back, making more room for Talon's hands.

Talon lingers, then breathes out and moves on.


	12. Chapter 12

His plans come together far more neatly than he expects them to. He knew that Jason and Talon cared for each other, knew that it was deeper than the Court would ever allow to prosper, but he didn't fully understand until he actually saw them together, unguarded. He didn't fully realize how deep it all went until he walked back in to get them both back to where they were supposed to be before anyone came back who would miss them, and found them curled into each other, sharing breath and comfort.

Still fully clothed, with no smell or sight to indicate they'd done anything more than that. It was almost unbelievable, if he hadn't seen it himself. He actually _believed_ that they hadn't done anything more in the two hours then just lie together and share warmth and perhaps a few kisses. It's a bizarre concept as the world makes sense to him, but after he thinks about it it does make sense. Jason lives his entire life being touched and used as others see fit, and Talon has never had autonomy. It makes sense that with the only equal they have in the world, they wouldn't want to have anything more than safety and security.

It's _perfect_ for his plans, in a way, but somehow it becomes more than that. Yes, Talon and Jason's connection and dissatisfaction with their separation is integral to gaining their trust, but he also finds himself actually… liking, the pair. He's not sure how, but somehow, as he continues to sneak them together over the months, he comes to actually appreciate Talon's sharp silence and Jason's hidden intelligence.

It has _nothing_ to do with the fact that Jason makes a point to catch him in a kiss each time, especially because the secondary Talon _has_ to be doing it just to fluster him, at this point. Somehow he can't seem to gain any immunity to the feeling, despite the fact that he knows Jason has no actual interest in him. It's just a language that Jason speaks more fluently than normal societal ones, and that's not at all surprising. Neither of the two Talons has what he would ever call _normal_ social patterns.

He studies how the Grandmaster interacts with Jason, performs a few small experiments, and then tells Jason precisely how to 'give in' to make things easier. Once he knows how it works, it's easy to make the Grandmaster believe that his conditioning is working, when in fact the only thing he's managed to do is slowly, _finally_ , push Jason's loyalty to the breaking point. If it didn't come at the expense of someone he's actually grown to like, he might laugh. Jason never deserved what was done to him; if the Grandmaster had simply handed him back to his original trainer the matter would have been solved.

Jason never needed to learn loyalty; he only needed to remember the priority of that loyalty. Honestly, even an actual trainer probably couldn't have done anything with Jason at that point. In the same way, Talon's trainer clearly didn't manage to actually extinguish any of the rebellion brewing inside their pet killer. If he cared for any of the Court, he might feel bad for them.

He nurtures his relationships with the Talons, keeps it all carefully concealed through a combination of careful planning and his unfettered access to the Court's security systems. He's had them hacked for years; no one sees anything inside the Court's base that he doesn't want them to.

Then, shortly after he turns seventeen, he gets the last sign he needs.

At the end of one of his arranged outings with the Talons, the original Talon touches his shoulder — a surprise itself; Talon's very careful with physical touch — and leans in. Before he can decipher what's happening, there's a hand tilting his head up and it's _Talon_ kissing him, a careful brush of lips that instantly makes him flush, and barely lasts long enough for him to even consider pulling away.

He stares, as Jason smiles, and Talon lets him go and says, quiet but clear, "You have my loyalty, Master."

There's not another word about it, and Talon seems to think that it settles something between them. There's no more intense looks when he sits or stands too close to Jason, or when Jason steals his usual kiss and murmurs his thanks. Talon doesn't seem to feel the need to defend Jason from him at all, or reinforce that Jason is his. It's an interesting shift, and it tells him that he can move forward with his plans.

It's no small thing to plan a coup, but he's been working at it for years. He has both of the Court's weapons loyal to him, at least more so than they are to the actual Grandmaster, and he has more allies among the Court than anyone thinks. Mainly because they believe that he is a strange, too-smart-for-his-own-good, loner of a kid. None of them believe he's cultivated friendships and alliances where he actually wanted them. Mainly, with those others that the Court rejects for one reason or another.

He's found he actually enjoys Kate Kane's company, for one.

So it isn't as much of a project as it is a matter of simply waiting for the right time. And he finally finds it. It needed the right kind of drama, the right kind of _attention_ , and a guarantee that either all or almost all of the Court would be in attendance. That isn't common.

Then it's announced that a new boy's been brought to the Court, and that he'll be presented the following night, and that's just _perfect_. The boy's already here, so Talon won't be out beforehand, which gives him the opportunity to interfere before the boy is actually presented. Maybe he can even cut it off completely, it's not like they actually need another Talon, with their current one still alive and more than capable. There are some things he'd like to change about how the Court's servants are created anyway. Improvements.

It's a simple matter to slip away from the gathering, with all the security gathered up at the party itself and almost no one in the base yet. He just makes sure that he's the first person down, as the rest slowly file in and head for the arena. He knows Jason will be there at the Grandmaster's side, as he always is these days — better though; almost no visible bruises — which just means he has to catch Talon before he heads in to bring the boy. It shouldn't be hard.

Talon is in uniform but not headed out yet when he gets down to Talon's room, and is already looking at him by the time he enters. Surprise flickers across that expression, and he comes to stand in front of Talon, letting there be silence for a moment as he runs through the words in his head. Tries to think if there's anything he's done wrong, any bit of his plan that might snap and bring the whole thing crashing down. One mistake at this point will cost him his life.

"Do I still have your loyalty?" he asks quietly, and then watches Talon's expression slide to steel.

"Yes, Master."

He offers a hand, as he always does. Bridging the physical gap between them, and the idea that Talon isn't allowed to touch anyone who has control over him. "Come with me."

Talon is infinitely careful with the claws in his glove when his hand is taken, though it's entirely symbolic since he probably couldn't pull Talon to his feet even if he tried. Too much weight in those muscles. He leads the way out of Talon's room, barely hearing the whisper of Talon's footsteps behind him, and makes his way to the lower entrances of the arena. The ones that will let them out inside the recessed area where the boy would have been presented, if he was going to allow that to happen. He pauses inside the door, taking a steadying breath as he listens, waiting for the echo of the Grandmaster's inevitable speech.

It comes sooner than he expected — he was running a bit late, maybe — and he takes one more breath before he turns the handle and pushes the door open. He can't hear Talon at his back anymore, not underneath the Grandmaster's voice and then the rush of murmurs as he strides into the arena, making sure that his movements are confident and that he stands as tall as possible. He _does not_ look back to check if Talon is still following him. The Grandmaster turns around as he draws to a stop, far enough from the podium to not be in its shadow, and definitely _not_ in the circle where the Court's cage springs up.

"Drake," the Grandmaster says, with a hint of surprise. As expected, Jason is standing at his shoulder, watching with just barely narrowed eyes, clearly sensing something of what he’s about to do.

"Grandmaster," he greets, making sure his voice is loud enough for the Court to hear him.

"We're presenting a new boy for training," the Grandmaster points out. "Are you volunteering, Drake?"

There's a titter of laughter from the rest of the Court, which he ignores. He smiles behind his mask, waits for the faint laughter to die out, then clasps his hands behind his back and faces the Grandmaster head on. He’s thought about this moment hundreds of times; he doesn’t expect it to go precisely as he’s imagined, but he knows what _he’s_ going to say, at the least.

“Grandmaster, it’s time for a change of leadership.” Instantly, the amused air in the room drops into frozen silence. He turns his head a bit, surveying the rest of the Court. “For _years_ I’ve watched you and the other members of the Inner Court drag Gotham back from the heights it’s capable of. Canceling projects that could revitalize the lower neighborhoods, funding and backing politicians that do _nothing_ but maintain the status quo, keeping every corporation under our control carefully collared so that they all stay even. You’re stuck in the past, and you’re dragging all of us and Gotham with you.”

The Grandmaster’s hands curl on either side of the podium, and he doesn’t need to see the expression behind that mask to know that he’s furious. “Drake, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re still a _child_.”

“Am I?” he challenges. “I’ve been in this Court since I was eight; I was _raised_ inside it. I took control of Drake Industries at _fifteen_ , and _you_ made me a member of the Inner Court at the same time. If you thought I was a child, you shouldn’t have put me in a position of power. Either you never considered me below an adult, or you’re incompetent.”

There’s a sharp gasp from the Court, and the Grandmaster shoves off the podium and snaps, “ _Enough_. Drake—”

“Do you realize what we could _do_ with the power we have over Gotham?” he interrupts. “You keep your stranglehold on Gotham and you say it’s for the sake of _profit_ , but we would make _millions_ more if the standard of living in Gotham increased, or anyone actually thought we were a safe tourist destination! Gotham holds headquarters for _dozens_ of global corporations; we could easily be the equal of Metropolis if you just allowed it to happen! If you’re not willing to come out of the past, you shouldn’t be our Grandmaster.”

He makes sense, and he knows he’s convinced at least some of the people in the audience, but that’s as much as he’s going to get. Now, where his plan hinges.

The Grandmaster is very still for a moment, and then takes a step back and turns half towards Jason, who looks somewhere between shut down and wary. “That’s enough. Talons, kill him.”

Jason hesitates, looking down at him and then past him to where Talon must be standing. He turns his head to look over his shoulder, finding Talon standing about three feet behind him and to the side, gaze just sliding away from him to look up at Jason. There's nothing obvious on either of their faces, but the hesitation speaks volumes. That doesn't mean he quite has them; he's asking them to go against _years_ of conditioning.

"Talon," he says simply, and then looks back up to the podium and calls, "Jason."

Jason's gaze snaps to him, and he leaves things there. No orders, no demands. Just their names. The names _they_ feel comfortable with.

The other members of the Court are starting to whisper, the tension in the room rising as their Talons _don't_ snap to obey, don't move to kill him as they've been ordered to.

The Grandmaster snaps, " _Talon!_ " and lashes out. The backhand knocks Jason to one knee, one hand bracing against the wood to catch himself. "Serve, boy!"

From his angle, he's probably the only person apart from the _actual_ Talon that can see Jason's mouth curl to bare teeth, can see the _anger_ that swells to life. Blue-green eyes rise to look past him, and whatever he sees in Talon's expression must be a reflection because then Jason is shoving up, rising with a fluid, violent kind of grace and an open _snarl_.

The Grandmaster's shocked cry is music to his ears, as Jason slams him down over the podium by his throat, other hand drawing one of the longer knives at his thighs. The knife comes down, and the Grandmaster _screams_ as it sinks through his shoulder and pins him to the podium. He smirks behind his mask as the Court surges up, panicking, echoing that scream dozens of times as they run for the doors.

Talon steps up to his side, one hand brushing the outside of his shoulder. He recognizes it as the silent question that it is.

"I want you to disable the elevator," he says, loud enough for Talon to hear, "then make sure that no one can wake the stored Talons. Will you?"

Talon watches him for a moment, ignoring the panic, and then gives a small nod. "The Court?"

"Your decision," he grants, and Talon's mouth slips, for one second, into a truly frightening _smile_.

Then Talon's moving, scaling the wooden side of the raised seating like it's nothing and slipping into the rush of Court members. They do _try_ to get out of his way, the ones that see him coming, but it doesn't help much. He looks away from Talon's bloody path, up to where Jason is standing over the Grandmaster, still snarling. Jason deserves that revenge, and he's got no intention of stopping it, but he also knows that Talon will want a piece too. He's _reasonably_ sure that Jason isn't going to snap at him for getting in the way, at least not physically.

"Jason!" he calls, and those blue-green eyes snap up to fix on him. He raises a hand, gestures for Jason to bring the Grandmaster down. Those eyes narrow a little bit, but after a moment Jason nods and rips the blade out of the Grandmaster's shoulder.

Shoving the Grandmaster off the podium isn't a _nice_ way to get him down, but it's efficient and nonfatal, so he's not going to complain. Jason jumps down more smoothly, dropping to a crouch on landing and then pushing back up. He seems to take a _lot_ of pleasure in grabbing the Grandmaster by the back of his cloak and shirt and dragging him across the floor. He lets Jason drop the Grandmaster at his feet, and just watches as one booted foot plants firmly in the middle of their once-master's back and holds him to the floor.

"He's mine," Jason declares, eyes narrowed but not quite aggressive.

"I know," he answers easily. "I just wanted to remind you that Talon will want a piece too, so you probably want to wait on actually killing him."

"Drake!" the Grandmaster gasps, trying to crawl out from under Jason's foot with absolutely no success. "Timothy, stop this! Get your Talon off of me!"

He sinks down to a crouch, reaching out and carefully pulling the mask from the Grandmaster's face. "It's Tim, actually," he says calmly, to those wide brown eyes, "and they're not _mine_ , exactly. I gave them the agency to choose who they wanted to serve; really you shouldn't be surprised they turned on you. Even a loyal dog will bite if you provoke it enough." He looks up, and clarifies, "Not that I think you're a dog," to Jason, who snorts in response.

"You kinda do." A shrug. "I kinda am. No offense taken."

"You're _much_ more useful than that," he insists, dropping the mask and standing back up. "I couldn't have done this without your support, and Talon's. Thank you."

Jason's mouth curls into a sharp smirk. "Is it your turn to kiss me?"

A snort bursts out of his throat, and he almost raises a hand to cover his mouth before remembering that his mask's still on. "Talon wouldn't be too happy about that," he points out, as he looks up to get a handle on the Court. Some of them will get out; there are other exits to the base besides the elevator, but they can't hide from him. They'll fall in line, or they'll meet 'accidents' and he'll take control of whatever bits of their power remains. The real interesting part will be seeing who Talon leaves standing.

"Where'd you send him?" Jason asks, stepping off of the Grandmaster's back to turn and look up at the Court as well.

"I asked him to disable the elevator, and make sure no one could wake up the older Talons as defense. I imagine he'll come back after that."

Jason hums acknowledgement. "What about me?"

"Well," he says, "it would be pretty foolish to be without a guard; not all the Court come to gatherings completely unarmed. And the Court has other servants; they may not be Talons but they can use a gun or a knife."

"Oh, so I'm guarding you?"

"It's an added bonus." He gives a small shrug, and clasps his hands behind his back again. "I don't actually expect any trouble; the Court will fall in line quickly enough, once they realize that I know what I'm doing."

The Grandmaster glares up at him. "You don't—”

Jason kicks his head back down, almost idly. "How are you going to prove it?"

He smiles behind his mask. "I know who Batman is. I have proof. That should shock most of them into line; the rest I can convince. Or get rid of. Gotham can be a great city; it just needs to be helped by the Court instead of held back. I'll bring this city as high as the rest of the world; just _watch_."

* * *

He's not there when Jason and Talon extract their vengeance from the Grandmaster, and considering the state of the room afterwards he decides he's glad about that. He has the stomach to watch violence, but maybe not that kind of torture. Not the kind of torture born of _years_ of frustration.

The Court, as he expects, falls in line. Once he's got them all in a room and they've stopped screaming and started listening. It remains to be seen how many of them will need to be dealt with in one way or another, but he thinks he has more support than he actually expected. He has decades of work to reverse, research to fund, alliances to make, but those are plans for the future. The hardest part is done, for now. There's lots of work to do, and he'll need to guard his back, but the time of purposefully risking his life is done. It's nice.

He's taken over the Grandmaster's office, and Talon and Jason are curled together on the couch in the corner; comfortable, but _also_ at an angle to watch the door. Neither of them seem interested in moving anytime soon, even though they must be tired by now, considering how busy of a day it's been.

There's silence for a long time, apart from the rustle of paper from his work, and the occasional faint murmur of their voices. Until Jason rises from the couch and leads Talon towards him, and he looks up in time to not be caught unawares as Jason pushes some of his files out of the way and sits down. Talon is at his back, watching over his shoulder with one arm hooked around his waist, and the fingers of that hand laced together.

"So," Jason starts, holding his gaze, "what now? You're the Grandmaster now; what about us?"

He pushes aside his papers, gives the both of them his full attention because they absolutely deserve it. "If you want to leave, I won't stop you. You have the right to choose your own lives now." He steeples his fingers, watching them exchange a glance. "I'd like for both of you to stay, to be Talons for me. I could use the help."

A longer look, apparently including a silent conversation that he can't fully understand even with his practice. But Talon's head ducks down next to Jason's, lips brushing his throat, and Jason answers, "Yes, we'll stay. We don't want to try and be anything else; this is what we are. You have our loyalty, Tim."

"Thank you," he says, before anything else. "Also, if you're interested, I want to offer both of you a place to stay in my home. I have a manor, and it's just me in it. There's plenty of room for both of you, if you want to try that." The surprise on both of them is easy to read, and he holds a hand up before either of them can say anything. "Take your time, think about it. I don't need an answer now."

Jason tilts his head back, to look at Talon, and then gives a small nod. "We'll talk about it."

He clasps his hands again, and then promises, "Anything you want, anything you need, just tell me. I'll make it happen if I can."

"And us?" Talon asks over Jason's shoulder, yellow eyes watching him steadily.

It takes him a moment to realize that Talon's talking specifically about the relationship between the two of them, almost like he's being asked for permission. He gives a small smile. "Like I said, the two of you can be whatever you want; do whatever you want. It's your decision. The boundaries of your relationship are for the two of you to decide. If you're looking for my blessing, you have it, but I don't have the right to dictate what you can't do with each other."

Talon's head lowers a little further, body curling further around Jason's. "Good," is the simple answer.

Jason lifts his free hand, craning his arm back to curl it through Talon's hair. Talon hums pleasure, and Jason's mouth flickers into a small smile. Then Jason looks down, at his desk and everything on it. "It's going to be a lot of work."

He takes a look down at the papers, files, notes, and just nods. When he looks up Jason is reaching across the desk, and he stays still as those fingers touch his cheek, and brush a couple strands of hair back behind his ear.

Despite everything that Jason was trained to be, it doesn't feel remotely sexual. Like Jason's kisses, it's something else. Something more and less at the same time. Jason _communicates_ so entirely differently than anyone else he knows, it's fascinating and confusing and he could probably spend weeks figuring it all out and still be interested. He's still miles from learning how to communicate the same way that Talon and Jason do with each other, and the challenge of that itches at his veins in a way he just _loves_.

Even with all of this work waiting, the idea of figuring out the mysteries of the two killers he's gained the loyalty of is more than interesting enough to keep him committed.

"It's going to be a complicated time," he admits, quietly.

Jason just smirks, hand dropping away from him. "You engineered a coup at seventeen; you can handle it." Jason turns to Talon, briefly brushing their mouths together, and then resting for a moment with their foreheads gently touching. Then Jason slips off the desk, standing close to Talon with their hands still laced, Talon's head still against his shoulder. "When you have something for us to do, Tim, just call."

He can't help the small smile that curves his mouth, just seeing how easy they are with each other. "Enjoy yourselves."

Talon's mouth flickers in another of those ghost-smiles, and he nuzzles closer to Jason, up against his neck.

Jason leans into it, then gives a small laugh. "Oh, that's the plan."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it's done! Hope you had fun, thanks for coming on this wild ride with me. XD (Tim was actually originally supposed to be part of the relationship, but he decided platonic was better and I wasn't going to press him about it.)
> 
> Once again, art for the story is done by dreammaidenn!  
> And beta-ed by[ Firefright](http://archiveofourown.org/users/firefright)!  
> Other art by [boxymilk](http://boxymilk.tumblr.com/post/153929511220/please-go-read-this-talonsau-fic-by-skalidra-its)!  
> And another piece by [Duckie](http://www.thepicta.com/media/1521520749377205477_407966813)!


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